It will be years before Arjun Nimmala suits up for a Major League Baseball game, but anticipation has already started to build in local Indian and South Asian communities eager to cheer for one of their own.
The 17-year-old high school shortstop was drafted 20th overall by the Blue Jays on Sunday night. No first-generation Indian American has ever been drafted higher — in any of the four major North American sports — or played in an MLB game.
The significance was not lost on Mississauga’s Rahul Marwaha, who like many fans hadn’t even heard of Nimmala until his stock started to rise in recent online mock drafts.
“I am very happy that he’s actually coming to Toronto, and I cannot wait to watch him play,” said Marwaha, a third-year business and humanities student at McMaster University.
Marwaha grew up watching baseball and loving the Jays, but cricket became his chosen sport in large part because more of the players look like him.
“For me as an Indian, as a brown person, seeing some representation in baseball is really exciting for the younger children that could now see it as an option,” he said. “With Arjun coming to the Blue Jays and him showing kids that this could be a great possibility for them, it’s a really important thing and I’m very excited for that ... Now I will for sure be keeping an eye on his progress (in the minor leagues).”
As reported by the Star’s Gregor Chisholm, Nimmala has a commitment to attend Florida State University in the fall, but the Jays still expect to sign him and start his development process with a two-week orientation at the team’s minor-league complex in Dunedin, Fla., about an hour from his home.
Nimmala’s parents immigrated to the United States from India in 2002 and encouraged him to pursue a career in sports. He played cricket, soccer and basketball until age 12, when he started to focus on the diamond. While he was born and raised in the U.S., he has .
“For Indians it’s mostly cricket, and transitioning to baseball has been a lot,” he said in an interview with MLB Network before the draft. “Hopefully one day I can inspire young Indian Americans to play and get more Indians in the sport … It’s about me as a kid playing the sport that I love, and trying to make it to the highest level, but thinking about how to make the Indian culture proud is also great.”
Canada is home to nearly two million people of Indian descent, according to Statistics Canada. In the U.S., it’s more than three million.
Nimna Mendis, a kinesiology student at Brock University, hopes Nimmala’s success is just the start.
“Especially because he got drafted right out of high school, hopefully if he comes early and gets into the major leagues, it can show other kids that you can make it into the big leagues and succeed at any time,” said Mendis.
Marwaha, who also coaches in the Ontario Schools Cricket Association, mentioned last month’s Cricket Day at the Rogers Centre — a first for the Jays — as an example of the appetite for baseball among Toronto’s South Asian population. The game against the last-place Oakland A’s was sold out.
While baseball isn’t nearly as popular in South Asia, Mendis, who is of Sri Lankan descent, added that Nimmala’s breakthrough could help the sport increase its global fan base as well.
“If Arjun can become a star and represent that market very well, I think more and more people from there would eventually embrace the sport and become big fans,” he said.
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