TODAY -
Taking India to first base
Tehelka.com | Samrat Chakrabarti | Tehelka Magazine, Dated 02 July 2011
Pix: Tehelka.com
In 2005, MLB got a pitch that it could not refuse. L Somi Roy, an American film curator of Manipuri origin, had been contacted by a cousin who was running for municipal elections in Imphal. “Sports is big in Manipur and there was a need for sports equipment in his constituency, but I told him that I live in America and we don’t play cricket here. You should ask someone in London. Then he tells me that he requires baseball equipment. Baseball. In Manipur? This I had to see and so I to travelled to Manipur to see it for myself,” says Roy.
His first impulse was to make a documentary but then Roy realised that what Manipur needed was good equipment. This is when he approached the MLB. At the time, American baseball was facing a huge crisis. A major performance enhancing drug scandal had broken out, tainting the game, involving Congressional hearings at Washington and the disastrous prospect of having a whole season cancelled.
“It was an awesome story. A small place, closed to the world, ridden by conflict, drugs and social decay, playing baseball to make something of themselves. The MLB said, ‘This is what we are talking about. This is why we play the game, for the love of it, not by spoilt multi-millionaire sportsmen who will do anything to win at all costs.’ They sent two baseball coaches who had experience in China and Cambodia to teach the game in Manipur.”
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* This Post is uploaded on June 24 2011.
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