Eri Yoshida, a 16-year-old high school girl, will be taking her knuckle ball to the pros.Yoshida was drafted this week to be Japan's first female professional baseball player, taking the field with the Kobe 9 Cruise in an independent league that starts its inaugural season in April.
The 5-foot-tall, 114 pound Yoshida has broken a barrier in baseball-crazy Japan, where women are normally relegated to amateur, company-sponsored teams or to the sport of softball.
"I'm really happy I stuck with baseball," Yoshida said in a news conference Monday after she was chosen with 32 others in the new league's draft. "I want to pitch against men."
The news of Yoshida's signing — she was chosen in the seventh round — was met with some skepticism that the league might be trying to grab headlines by naming a woman. In that, they certainly succeeded — Yoshida's photo was all over the morning news Tuesday, and she was featured in a profile in the prestigious Asahi, a major national newspaper.
1 comment:
I hope Emi's related to her...
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