The story of how Babe Ruth took an all star team to tour Japan in 1934 is well known and how baseball spread there. Now Japanese stars are coming to the USA for the big bucks and have become accepted. Latin Americans were here before and now we have Australians playing in the Big Show as well.

I imagine it was only a matter of time before someone sought to popularize baseball in India, a place where British cricket is played and is the popular team sport. This is a true story about how Jon Hamm's character went to India as a business promotion to bring back a pair of the Indian equivalent of Jackie Robinson.

Million Dollar Arm follows the Japanese tradition in that Japan came to Major League baseball via the pitching route. It was years before position players started to fill the ranks of the Major Leagues. I guess Hamm's character figured that baseball could wait for an Indian shortstop or outfielder. It was a pitcher that the contest was geared for and two prospects Hamm got in Suraj Sharma and Maddur Mittal.

The two Indian actors were quite charismatic and appealing as the Indian kids who carry a lot of hopes and dreams with them. They might not have to face what Jackie Robinson faced or what the first out gay player in the Major Leagues might face, but still the culture shock for these two is quite real.

Two other roles of note are Bill Paxton as a baseball coach who tutors them in the fine art of pitching and Adam Arkin as the somewhat jaded old baseball scout who can tell the quality of the fast ball by its pop in the glove.

Of course sooner or later some Indian kid will develop the knuckleball of Hoyt Wilhelm and Arkin's theories will blow up.

I'm always up for a good baseball movie and Million Dollar Arm is a very good one indeed.

Womanizing JB Bernstein (Jon Hamm) and Aash (Aasif Mandvi) are small sport agents struggling against their former employer Procorp. After watching Aash's cricket game and Susan Boyle, JB comes up with an idea to get pitching arms from India for the LA Dodgers owner Chang. They convince Tom House (Bill Paxton) the highly improbable task to train the amateurs. Brenda (Lake Bell) is his winning medical student tenant. Vivek is his local manager. With eager Amit Rohan and sleepy scout Ray Poitevint (Alan Arkin),they run a $1 million reality contest.

This is a fine underdog sports movie. I like the kids' stories. I wish they expanded more on their lives. Jon Hamm is a bit too intense and he needs a bit more humor. Lake Bell is terrific. The movie is also restricted by the real story. The boys could never go to the World Series. They also didn't crash and burn. They end up in a middling area where they get some success but not enough to be good climax material. The movie is also too long at over 2 hours but it has a good solid base of an underdog movie.

I thought this was a cute movie because of the young Indian men's precious responses to their new environment. I would be curious to see if beyond the baseball element, all the stuff took place. Did they stay with the guy? Did they get thrown out of the hotel? The actors are charming and lovable. Having been a baseball fan for 60 years, I can't believe that, as presented, these guys would be offered a contract. Unless it was to sell tickets or gain publicity. They can throw hard, but at no time do we see them with a batter in the batter's box or under game conditions. I would assume that if this is indeed a true story there would be more unseen than seen. I hate to be too critical, but I've always felt that a true sports movie must have credibility when it comes to the day to day requirements of the sport. There are also some really schmaltzy moments that are strictly to manipulate the audience.