Indians want to be Pirates

Rating: 9/10 (20 May 2014)

The story of how Babe Ruth took an all star team to tour Japan in 1934 is well known and how baseball spread there. Now Japanese stars are coming to the USA for the big bucks and have become accepted. Latin Americans were here before and now we have Australians playing in the Big Show as well.
I imagine it was only a matter of time before someone sought to popularize baseball in India, a place where British cricket is played and is the popular team sport. This is a true story about how Jon Hamm's character went to India as a business promotion to bring back a pair of the Indian equivalent of Jackie Robinson.
Million Dollar Arm follows the Japanese tradition in that Japan came to Major League baseball via the pitching route. It was years before position players started to fill the ranks of the Major Leagues. I guess Hamm's character figured that baseball could wait for an Indian shortstop or outfielder. It was a pitcher that the contest was geared for and two prospects Hamm got in Suraj Sharma and Maddur Mittal.
The two Indian actors were quite charismatic and appealing as the Indian kids who carry a lot of hopes and dreams with them. They might not have to face what Jackie Robinson faced or what the first out gay player in the Major Leagues might face, but still the culture shock for these two is quite real.
Two other roles of note are Bill Paxton as a baseball coach who tutors them in the fine art of pitching and Adam Arkin as the somewhat jaded old baseball scout who can tell the quality of the fast ball by its pop in the glove.
Of course sooner or later some Indian kid will develop the knuckleball of Hoyt Wilhelm and Arkin's theories will blow up.
I'm always up for a good baseball movie and Million Dollar Arm is a very good one indeed.