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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