Eri Yoshida is the first female — and the youngest — pro baseball player in an all-male league in Japan.

QuoteWhat began as a long overdue family vacation in November for the Yoshida family has become national news in Japan — and completely out of left field. Last week, Isamu Yoshida drove his family eight hours down to Kobe from their home in Yokohama City (outside of Tokyo) partly so that Yusuke, the 19-year-old college baseball player in the family, could test his skills in the three-day tryouts for Japan's new independent minor league. The Yoshidas wound up getting a family member into pro ball, but it wasn't Yusuke who was drafted. It was his 16-year-old sister.

Eri Yoshida is the first female — and the youngest — professional baseball player in an all-male league in Japan. Even as a lightweight, at 5 ft. (152 cm) and 114 lbs. (52 kgs), Yoshida pitches a mean right-handed knuckleball — a throw with speeds of about 100 km and an unpredictable trajectory that she says no batter has yet been able to hit. That's the weapon the Kobe 9 Cruise team hopes will lead them to success when the Kansai Independent League starts its first season in April. In the meantime, Yoshida says that she's most anxious about her first pitch and will train (running and using light weights) and continue to play in her all-female baseball club that meets on weekends. She started baseball when she was eight years old and says she's had the desire to go professional since playing first baseman in an all-boys team in middle school. Bring on the hard work.

Yoshida registered with the Kobe 9 one week before tryouts and on Nov. 16, after pitching a no-hit inning, was signed with 32 other players — out of about 450 candidates. Her brother did not make the draft. "I was so surprised and thought, 'Was I really chosen?'" says Yoshida, who looks like a typical second-year high school student, now dressed in Nike navy blue sweats sitting in her living room at home, apologizing every time her cell phone vibrates with texts and calls. The first thing she did when she found out was to text two of her friends with the message "I made the draft!" with a peace-sign emoticon.

Yoshida started playing baseball to emulate her older brother Yusuke. And her father — who preferred ping-pong to baseball in high school — thought that she would fare better with a special skill. So he showed her a video of Red Sox knuckleballer Tim Wakefield on the family's 65-inch-screen television. Entranced by Wakefield's pitch, in which the knuckles or fingernails grip the stitches, she spent two years studying videos and reading Wakefield's book before she felt comfortable enough to throw it in a game.

Still, even as Yoshida's schoolgirl smile graces Japanese television and tabloids, some are skeptical of her ability to compete as the only woman in a league of adult males, saying that drafting a 16-year old girl is an easy — and cheap — way to generate publicity for the new four-team league. Toshihiko Kasuga, the director of the Women's Baseball Association of Japan has said: "I think her recruitment is in part for the publicity. It would be extremely hard for women to squarely compete against men in any sport." But women who want to play professionally have little choice, since the professional baseball league for women that Japan had in the 1950s folded after just a few years. Robert Whiting, an expert on Japanese baseball and author of The Meaning of Ichiro and You Gotta Have Wa says, "Independent league teams operate on a shoestring, so any PR she can bring will be warmly welcomed."

To her critics, Yoshida admits that she needs to increase her physical strength, but adds with confidence: "I've got my knuckleball pitch." Whiting says, "Throwing a knuckleball is an art; speed and power are irrelevant. Control is what is most important." Kobe 9 Cruise coach Yoshihiro Nakata agrees and is confident that Yoshida has what it takes. "Since a knuckleball pitch wavers and then drops irregularly, she needs to work on making the ball go exactly where she wants it to go," says Nakata. "But as she gains more experience pitching in games she'll be able to hold the other team." Yoshida hopes the knuckleball, which puts less strain on the arm, will extend her career as well. "I want to be like Wakefield," she says. "It's amazing that he can play into his 40s and that's something that I want to do, too." After the news of her selection broke, Wakefield said that he might even be able to learn something from Yoshida — news that made Yoshida as giddy as, ahem, a schoolgirl.

Once Yoshida moves to Kobe after school finishes and the season starts, there will be logistical issues to consider with a young woman on an all-male team in a fledgling, low-budget league. Nakata says, for instance, that when the Kobe 9 Cruise travel for games, it is likely that Yoshida will have access to the locker room first and then the rest of the team can get ready. Plus, of course, her own hotel room when traveling away from home. "Her presence on the team will give new meaning to the term 'couldn't get to first base with her,'" quips Whiting. Yoshida says that while not everything has been discussed and sorted out yet, such talk doesn't faze her. "I have an older brother so I'm used to it," she says.

Since I know very little about baseball, can someone explain me what's so special about a knuckleball? Is it enough for her to succeed?

It has no spin. See, most pitches have a spin and that spin is very influential in the path of the ball. It's physics what with the stitches and the way the air moves around the ball and it's spin and blah blah blah...

But with a knuckle ball, it's virtually impossible to know - because there's no spin. So the path of the ball is highly erratic and very unpredictable. Watch a catcher try to catch a really good knucklballer - it's hilarious. They have no idea where the ball is going to go.

And that's the problem the batter has. Even if he guesses/knows the ball is a knuckle ball - a floater - he's still got no idea where it's going. Which makes it different from other pitches in that if the batter guesses (or in the case of really good hitters can see the spin and knows) what the pitch is, they can adjust their swing - they have a pretty good idea of where the pitch is going. With a knuckle ball - it's anyone's guess...

Howdy JongWK.  Knuckleballs have no or very little spin on them, unlike pretty much any other pitch.  Despite it's name you end up basically flicking the ball with your fingertips and the goal is pretty much to get the ball to plow through the air with as little rotation as possible.  They "flutter" through through the air in a very random way, this is called "knuckling"--sinking and wobbling at the same time might be a good way to describe it.  Other pitches cut through the air and do differing things depending on their rotation. If you are used to seeing major league fastballs all the time, seeing a knuckle ball is very strange and hard to get used to.  Many times even the pitcher really doesn't know where the ball is going to end up, and sometimes the catcher will wear a bigger glove. I think it was Bob Uecker who said it's the easieast pitch to catch-wait till it stops rolling and go to the backstop and pick it up.  

A knuckleball specialist female ball player might be the most plausible situation as far as a woman breaking into the sport --throwing a knuckle ball is not as tiring or stressful on the arm than other pitches, and it doesn't have to be thrown hard.  From what I've seen of asian ball, they throw lots of wicked breaking balls from all differing angles, so knuckleballs might not be as effective as it is in US ball.  

 rock on

The knuckle ball also has a reputation for being a rather dangerous pitch, due to the difficulty that many pitchers who try to use it have in controlling it.

My kids were totally jazzed when they heard this story.  My son, because he really likes the Japanese angle on the game; my daughter because she likes the idea of a girl breaking into a man's sport.

By the way, on a related topic, did anyone hear about the two Indian cricket bowlers being drafted into the US Major Leagues?  They were discovered through a US-sponsored Indian reality TV show.  Now all we need to do is start recruiting batsmen.

!i!

Quote from: Ian Absentia;269745By the way, on a related topic, did anyone hear about the two Indian cricket bowlers being drafted into the US Major Leagues?  They were discovered through a US-sponsored Indian reality TV show.  Now all we need to do is start recruiting batsmen.

!i!

Awesome! I recommend the Rawalpindi express. Better known as Shoib Aktar. A huge run up, a mean delivery stride, bowling over-arm = 100 mph. Try that Mr. Clemens!

On the batting side, you could do worse than Yuvraj Singh or Kevin Pieterson.

A friend of mine at work is from your side of the Atlantic, and he's a huge fan of cricket and considerable fan of baseball.  He's been schooling me in the former while trading opinions on the latter.  He was explaining that the Indians are probably more famous for their batsmen than their bowlers, but that they largely tend to be men of "much smaller stature, not monsters like Bonds or McGwire."  Of course, the strike zone on a fellow who's only 5'6" tall is tiny, and there's a lot to be said for finesse as well as power.

!i!