Dinesh Patel
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Born: May 8, 1989 Lucknow, India |
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Dinesh Kumar Patel (born May 8, 1989 in Lucknow, India) is an Indian right-handed baseball pitcher who played in the Pittsburgh Pirates organization. Along with Rinku Singh, he was the first Indian national ever to sign a contract with a major American sports club. Neither Patel nor Singh had ever thrown a baseball before beating over 37,000 competitors in The Million Dollar Arm, an Indian reality television show designed to find new baseball talent.
Due to extreme poverty and inability to meet the expenses of raising a child, Patel's parents had left him to be raised by his maternal grandmother in Khanpur. At the age of 14, he started visiting Sampurnanand Stadium in Sigra where he met athletes and trained himself to play field hockey. In 2004, he was selected for a regional sports hostel in Lucknow. Patel won a gold medal in fieldhockey at the National School Games at Pune in 2006.
Patel, along with Singh, tried out in front of scouts from 20 Major League Baseball teams in November 2008. Reports from Pittsburgh Pirates scouts Joe Ferrone and Sean Campbell led to general manager Neal Huntington signing both to contracts with the organization. With the deal, the pair became the first Indians to sign American major league baseball contracts. The total signing bonus for the two was $8,000. After training, the two returned to visit their families in India before entering Pirates training camp in Bradenton, Florida.
Patel, along with Singh, played for the Pirates' Gulf Coast League team. He had a successful, yet brief, 2009 season for the Pirates, picking up a victory on August 13 (exactly one month after his countryman Singh got his first, and only, win of the year) and finishing with a 1–0 record and 1.42 ERA, allowing two runs (one earned) on six hits in 6 1⁄3 innings. Patel's 2010 season was less successful, with an 8.59 ERA in 7 1⁄3 innings, over nine games; he was released in December 2010 and returned home to finish school.
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