Boston Red Sox pitcher Tim Wakefield tutors Japanese female knuckleball phenom Eri Yoshida

[RamboLiberal]

There's never been a female baseball player in the major leagues, and there's rarely more than a handful of knuckleball pitchers around, either.

Which makes Japan's Eri Yoshida all the more extraordinary.

Yoshida, a 5-1 knuckleball specialist who throws with a sidearm delivery, became the first female drafted by a pro team in Japan – and now she has her eye on the bigs, or at least her idol, Red Sox pitcher Tim Wakefield.

Wakefield, a 43-year-old All-Star, met with Yoshida on Tuesday at the Red Sox player development complex in Fort Myers, Fla., sharing some tricks of the trade with the 18-year-old ace. Yoshida, who learned to throw the difficult-to-master pitch by watching video of Wakefield when she was a child, is in the United States to pitch in the Arizona Winter League. She earned her first win as a Yuma Scorpion on Feb. 12 with four shutout innings.

"I'm impressed," Wakefield told The Associated Press. "She spun a couple, but for the most part it was very good. She was able to take the spin out of a lot of them and they had quite a lot of movement on them.


Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/2010/03/03/2010-03-03_red_sox_pitcher_tim_wakefield_tutors_japanese_female_knuckleball_specialist_eri_.html#ixzz0hB1R4TId

[Captain Hilts]

1. Women are marginalized in slow/soft ball with a ball too large for baseball type pitching. nt