Dinesh, left, and Rinku in their new Under Armor wear

Maybe the holidays have us feeling mellow, but we think we’d love this story any time of the year. A search for “Rinku Singh Dinesh Patel javelin throwers” turns up a lot of hits, but the best version of the back-story is Bruce Reed’s on Slate.

Before last Monday’s signing, few in India had ever heard of the Pittsburgh Pirates, which is just as well…

But in India, baseball is such a novelty that the Pirates might as well be the New York Yankees. The Hindustan Times reported, “Two Indian teenagers created history in the US sports Monday when they were signed up by prestigious baseball team Pittsburgh Pirates, five times World Series Champions.” Never mind that the Bucs’ last world championship was 30 years ago…

In many ways, the whole episode is like the Pirates themselves—endearingly ridiculous. Pittsburgh discovered the two Indian pitchers, Rinku Singh and Dinesh Patel, thanks to an Indian reality show called The Million-Dollar Arm, the brainchild of Miami sports agent J.B. Bernstein…

Bernstein promised a cool million to any Indian who could throw a baseball accurately at 85 mph. Of the 20,000 Indians who competed, Singh and Patel came closest, doing well enough to earn some cash and a chance to try out here in the United States.

The boys, who reportedly learned to speak English by watching Baseball Tonight, have their own blog, subtitled “Our Baseball Yatra.” In Hindi, a yatra is a kind of pilgrimage or, alternatively, a procession. The blog is brimming with grin-inducing posts about which Hollywood (not Bollywood) movie has the best special effects:

i think we have a new favorite – dethroning BAD BOYS… We did not think it was possible, but the movie WANTED has even better special effects than any movie seen yet by us. They somehow got bullets to curve in order to hit target. There is no way we can explain the special effects… You just have to see it.

And what they eat:

We getting many email asking question about what we eating. We mostly cooking home.

Breakfast favorite banana pancake. I making Super Cakes with banana cook inside. We liking pizza and pork ribs.

Sometimes lunch we going University Village. This wonderful place of eating. many shops with the many foods. Rinku and I always liking to eat the Chinese food. 27 fish combo or combo 2 B… That is best dishes to us.

And their new, unwavering allegiance to an actual sponsor:

Dinesh and I very happy and excited today. We get first deal with the Under Armor company. they makings us shoes, cleets, knickers, shirts. It was very awesome to return from the practice and received such kind gifts.

We only wearing Under Armor so this great fortune to us.

Last night we also seeing the movie Earth Stand Still. good action scenes but also many talking.

I couldn’t agree more with that film review. For more of the boys’ adventures, complete with YouTube videos, check out the The Million Dollar Arm blog. Hurry, before they get all major league on us.