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The knee-jerk knockers are out to write off the professional baseball career of Eri Yoshida before it gets started.

Eri, a 17-year-old Japanese high school student, made the news on Friday by being the first female to play in a men's professional baseball league in Japan. See the Associated Press story here and the Vyoos version here.

It is predictable that there will be a mixed reaction. There will be well-wishers who see it is a happy ending to a story of someone who dared to dream. There will be purists who are uncomfortable. There will be doubters. And there will be those who choose to mock.

Amongst the last is Rob Neyer, described as a 'senior writer' on espn.com. Neyer wrote, "Hmmm, let's see … five feet and 114 pounds … what happens when the enemy hitters start dropping bunts into that tricky area between the pitcher's mound and the third-base line? Will Yoshida have the quickness and the arm strength to throw anyone out at first base?"

The heading on the story was, "Female knuckleballer in Japan out of her league".

A knuckleballer is a pitcher with an unusual delivery which depends more on skill than strength. It is therefore, as David Pinto wrote in a comment to Rob Neyer's article, a logical path for women to professional baseball.

As for the rest, Neyer could have chosen to wait and find out the answers to his questions.

When Eri Yoshida took the step up onto that pitcher's mound on Friday night, she was a young baseballer with long-term hopes of establishing a career in professional sport and a short-term job to do. That's what her coach, her team management and the woman herself saw. What Rob Neyer saw was a girl and a sneering headline opportunity.

images: sportsillustrated.cnn.com, jhockey.wordpress.com

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Sexism, Baseball

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Schoolgirl's special K

March 28th 2009 02:56

Eri Yoshida, baseball player

Eri Yoshida, a 17-year-old Japanese schoolgirl, stands five feet zero inches tall and weighs 114 pounds (for those who prefer metric measurements, that's: short and light).

In December 2008, it was announced that she had signed a contract with the Osaka Gold Villicanes professional baseball team. The Villicanes are part of the new Kansai Independent League, a long way from the elite levels of Japanese baseball, but professional nevertheless and therefore with a need to do the promotion and marketing thing to get some fans through the gates.

The signing of a 17-yeard old girl was therefore immediately seen as a publicity stunt. They might claim that Eri Yoshida commands a wicked sidearm knuckleball and has dreams of emulating the feats of knuckleball legend Tim Wakefield, but she would never, it was felt, actually take the mound in a real game.

Yesterday, in the ninth inning of the season opener, the manager of the Osaka Gold Villicanes pointed at his young knuckleball pitcher and told her to go out and pitch. The Villicanes were losing 5-0, but that is by no means an insurmountable deficit with an inning to go. Eri's walk to the mound was no token gesture.

Just over 11,500 fans watched with interest.

She started nervously, throwing four consecutive pitches wide of the plate and walking the lead-off batter. That batter then stole second to add to the pressure on the debut pitcher.

Then Eri settled and started to get the knuckleball radar working. Three times she pitched and three times the batter swung, and missed.

That's called a strike-out, but baseball fans just call it a K.

Good pitchers collect Ks. May Eri Yoshida, the first woman ever to play professional baseball against men in Japan, collect many more.
image: www.wunrn.com

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Japan, Sport, Baseball

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