When Shikar Baheti showed up for Red Bank High School's first day of baseball workouts this year, he didn't bring a glove.
He didn't have one - but then, he didn't know one was needed.
"He was going, literally, from step one," Lions coach Trey Hicks recalled. "He didn't know how to put on a uniform."
Baheti's knowledge of bat-and-ball games was limited to cricket, in which the batsman hits a ball that is often bounced toward him and the only fielder wearing a glove is the wicket keeper, a position akin to catcher.
Baseball is as common in Delhi, India, as chauffeur-driven Cadillacs, and Baheti's sports involvement there had been centered on sports like rugby, soccer and cricket - but mostly cricket.
"He's somebody who didn't know anything about baseball. Anything we say he absorbs. He doesn't stop and think back to what his dad might have said," Hicks said. "He's very coachable, and he's trying to learn the game. He's always asking questions and trying to learn the lingo."
At first, when a ball was hit on the ground and Baheti was on base, he didn't run - part of his cricket training.
"I didn't know about (running) bases," he said. "I didn't know the field was (shaped) like a diamond."
Batting was a new experience, too.
"I had to figure out where the ball was coming from," Baheti said. "In cricket, the ball bounces on the ground first and then comes to the batter. In baseball, it comes directly flying to you. It's tough to master that. When it's coming from the pitcher's hand, you have to figure whether it's a curveball or fastball."
Hicks sympathizes with the challenge Baheti faces trying to catch up with his teammates.
"It's still brand new to him; no background whatsoever," the coach said. "It would be like one of us going out for a sport I know absolutely nothing about. And the rules - baseball is a very complicated game if you've never played it even I can still get confused with some of the rules."
Baheti - almost everyone at Red Bank has taken to calling him "Sugar" because it's easier for them to pronounce than his first name - recalled one of his first practices.
"The pitcher was throwing balls to second base, and we had to catch the ball and slap it to the ground," he said. "I didn't know what the stance was. I didn't know what to do. The runner was coming, and I slammed the glove on his face."
It got easier.
"The whole team was enthusiastic. They taught me from grassroots," he said. "They made me learn, so I'm better now than the first day. They've been very supportive."
Baheti came to the area in October when his father began work as a software engineer with BlueCross BlueShield.
The future Red Bank Lion was reluctant, disappointed even, when he first learned he'd be moving to the United States.
"My first thought was 'Oh my gosh, what now? How do I tell my friends I was leaving them?'" he recalled. "It was tough for a day or two, but there are more opportunities in America as it's the leading country in the world. I thought about life and my future."
There were concerns beyond being the new kid at school. He was the new kid at a new school in a new country.
"I wondered if people would accept me, if they'd think of me as a foreigner. But people have been nice to me," he said. "And baseball has been a good experience. I've learned the game. I've learned about teamwork and sportsmanship. I've gotten to know more people and learn how Americans live, and that has been helpful."
He is also a member of the school's robotics team and an accomplished student, and Hicks said all the teachers he had spoken with enjoy having Baheti in class. Breaking through and establishing himself socially has come with his academic prowess, along with his desire to learn.
The new kid is quickly becoming one of the guys.
"He understands the basics of the game. He's enjoying himself, and the kids like him," Hicks said. "In the long run, it's not how hard or far he can throw a baseball or whether he can hit a home run. It's his ability to build relationships and break that barrier of coming to a new country and being accepted by a group of guys with whom he at first had little in common.
"That's the biggest thing - acceptance in this culture, acceptance in this country. The last thing I want is somebody who feels he hasn't been accepted or doesn't feel wanted."
Contact Ward Gossett at wgossett@timesfreepress.com or 423-886-4765. Follow him on Twitter @wardgossett.