Brown people can't play baseball

OPINION

“And the winner, based on his speed and accuracy, is Rinku Singh! He's won $100,000 U.S., a trip to America and a tryout with a Major League Baseball team!” according to an excerpt from the movie “Million Dollar Arm.”

These guys got the opportunity to play baseball without even knowing what a strike or ball was.

Yet here I am, knowing more about baseball that someone probably should and just because I didn’t live in India, I have to fight each day to get a coach to turn his head.

Nobody understands what it’s like to be an Indian baseball player growing up in America. Singh got the opportunity because he was one of the only boys in India to throw a strike.

I have dealt with so much unnecessary criticism being an Indian man trying to play the game of baseball.

I may not have the strength of the white player on my right; I may not have the talent level of the Mexican player to my left and I may not fit the bill of a baseball player in the eyes of the coach, but that doesn’t mean I can’t challenge that player for his spot on the diamond.

Rinku Singh became the first person of Indian descent to play for an American team when he signed to the Pittsburgh Pirates’ minor league team in 2009.

"If I continue to do what I'm doing right now, just believing in myself, believing in my work ethic, believing where I'm going from, it's gonna happen one day," Singh said in a CBS report in 2013.

According to MLB.com, only two Indian people have made it onto a minor league roster in the long history of baseball. The first was in 2009.

I have spoken to many people who said they enjoyed the movie “Million Dollar Arm,” and think it was an inspirational story about bringing Indian players into baseball.

Yet many people fail to understand how difficult it is to be an American-born Indian player attempting to have a career in the game.

I have loved baseball for as long as I can remember. I used to go to San Francisco Giants games as a kid and tell my dad, “I am going to be on that field someday.”

He would say, “I believe that you will be. I have no doubt.”

I stepped away from the game in sixth grade because I couldn’t handle the mocking. I didn’t want to let people tell me whether or not I can play the game I love.

I can’t describe the number of times people have said, “hey! This isn’t a cricket field! Why are you here?” or “there is no way that guy is Indian; he must be black. Indian people don’t play baseball.”

But none of that compared to the worst experience of my baseball career.

I was batting in the last game of the little league season in 2006 against a white pitcher who always told me I didn’t belong in baseball. He hit me in the neck with the first pitch.

I gave up on baseball after that. I thought it wasn’t worth the ridicule I received because I wasn’t like everyone else.

In my sophomore year of high school, I dreaded physical education class. I hated having to run around the track while I watched the baseball team practice on the field next to me.

I decided it was enough and I worked as hard as I could to get my arm back in shape to try out for the team. And I made it.

I went on to play for the varsity team as a junior and senior.

I was still ridiculed by teammates and people on campus, but I knew what I was capable of and what I needed to do to get there.

Unfortunately, my coach didn’t see my dream the same way. I received little to no playing time in the first half of the season.

My first appearance as a pitcher after four years off was with the bases loaded and nobody out.

My coach basically threw me into the fire, but I got out of it without giving up a run.

I told myself that I wasn’t going to get many opportunities to pitch so when I did, I knew I had to force the hand of my coach to let me.

Sometimes in life you need people to tell you can’t do something. Proving them wrong only fuels you.

I continued to grow as a pitcher and a person in my three years of playing in high school. As a senior, other teams thought I was black because they didn’t think Indian people could do what I did.

Coaches and other people told me my career was over after high school, that I had no chance to play at a higher level despite the success I had in my senior year.

I made the team at De Anza College in Cupertino in spite of the backlash I received for even trying out. I spent two years there as a pitcher and now I’m trying out for the team at San Jose State.

Before leaving De Anza, I had an exit meeting with my coach.

After telling him I was headed to SJSU, he said, “hmm … wow, OK. Well, good luck trying to get on that team. It might be hard for someone like you.”

I have lived my life and baseball career by telling myself that it’s not about what people say you can’t do, it’s all about how you can show them they’re wrong.

My dream of making the major leagues is still alive.