Baseball is called America’s pastime, but it surely has lengthy been a worldwide sport. From the Dominican Republic to Japan to Venezuela, the game reigns supreme for followers, and numerous gamers are on Main League Baseball rosters.
The subsequent nation that would quickly be on that checklist? India.
Whereas its residents could choose a distinct sport with a ball and a bat — cricket — it’s additionally the motherland of Arjun Nimmala, the highest prospect within the Toronto Blue Jays group. Picked twentieth general within the 2023 draft, Nimmala is the primary first-generation Indian American to be chosen within the first spherical.
Nimmala, who grew up outdoors Tampa Bay, Florida, mentioned his father launched him to cricket at a younger age but in addition taught him baseball. He fell in love with the game and performed competitively all through highschool till the Blue Jays chosen him at simply 17 years previous.
Two years later, he’s ranked No. 46 out of 900 prospects by MLB and thought of a future centerpiece of the group.
Whereas Nimmala, at the moment with the Blue Jays’ high-A affiliate Vancouver Canadians, continues to ascend the minor leagues, MLB is doing intensive outreach in India by placing collectively tournaments for kids and taking baseball applications to varsities.
“We need to attempt to introduce the game to as many youngsters as attainable,” Chris Marinak, MLB’s chief operations and technique officer, advised NBC Information. “That’s the foot within the door. That’s the way in which that you just educate youngsters on the sport — you get youngsters to fall in love with it, they usually change into followers for the remainder of their lives.”
He mentioned the purpose is to take baseball to India each on the fields and inside properties.
“We’re specializing in getting our MLB video games on broadcast and streaming,” Marinak mentioned. “We’ve two companions in India proper now which are placing video games reside for the postseason and the common season, and we’re seeing nice curiosity from followers round consumption.”
MLB opened an workplace in India in 2019 and since 2021 has hosted the MLB Cup, a event for beginner youth groups throughout the nation.
Nimmala traveled to India in 2023 to see the initiatives the league was producing and to assist develop the sport within the nation the place a lot of his household nonetheless lives.
“To have the ability to go there and never solely see that baseball is part of India, as effectively, however simply additionally making an attempt to make it larger, I feel that makes me tremendous proud,” Nimmala mentioned. “Realizing that I’ve a chance of doing that and simply seeing how a lot baseball is performed in India already, I assumed was very cool.”
Requested how massive baseball may be in India, a rustic with 1.46 billion folks, Marinak mentioned MLB has excessive objectives.
“When you’ve a billion followers which are watching cricket, it creates an actual alternative to develop the game,” he mentioned. “If we are able to get baseball to the dimensions of cricket, it will be an enormous penetration into that market. It might look rather a lot like what you see in Japan [and the] United States. It may be achieved.”
Nimmala says the purpose stays to make the foremost leagues, although that would take a number of years due to his age and expertise. His 17 residence runs final yr led all gamers ages 18 or youthful, and after some early-season struggles, he turned up his manufacturing within the second half.
From June 27 on, Nimmala hit .265/.331/.564 with 13 homers over his remaining 53 video games.
Often called a strong fielder, he has elite arm power, in keeping with MLB.com.
However the stats inform just one a part of his story. By simply being on the sector, Nimmala is inspiring a complete new era of Indian gamers.
“I do get a whole lot of messages, particularly on Instagram, from youthful youngsters which are Indian that begin to play baseball,” he mentioned. “They’re like, ‘Dude, I actually look as much as you.’ I feel it’s tremendous cool to see that.”
However even with all of the duties of being a trailblazer, he’s retaining his eyes on the prize.
“I’ve 100% confidence that I’ll play with the Toronto Blue Jays at some point and make an affect.”
