While Jon Hamm is busy looking for Indian baseball players in “Million Dollar Arm,” filmmaker Mirra Bank has already found them.
They’re in Manipur, a remote state in northeast India.
As the new documentary “The Only Real Game” details, American baseball has taken hold in this small area of a country that’s largely dominated by cricket. (The film opens Friday).
Despite Babe Ruth calling baseball “the only real game in the world,” it doesn’t exactly blanket the globe. The sport was likely introduced in Manipur by American soldiers stationed there during World War II. Today, the state’s capital city, Imphal, has more than 20 clubs.
“It gives people a sense of joy and solace and relief that’s very powerful,” Bank says. And Manipur is a region in need of relief. For centuries, it remained an independent kingdom before finally being folded into India in 1949. Many residents still desire independence, and a violent civil war has been raging since the 1980s.
“This is such a staunch and amazing people under ridiculous forms of government that rise up somehow because of the human spirit,” says Melissa Leo, the Oscar-winning actress who narrates the documentary. “It’s remarkable that when people are oppressed, if there’s the tiniest escape hatch, a crack — even the simple, funny old game of baseball — people will slip through that crack.”
One organization that’s well aware of what’s going on in Manipur is Major League Baseball. It’s sent coaches and set up camps to further the sport’s programs. As Hamm discovered in “Million Dollar Arm,” India is too big a potential market to ignore.