17-Year-Old Japanese Girl Debuts as Pro Baseball Pitcher (Video)

Eri Yoshida, a 17-year-old Japanese girl, just debuted as a pro baseball pitcher. She wasn't good but she wasn't terrible, striking out one and walking one in her brief debut.

To learn more, see the Associated Press' Japanese girl, 17, K's 1 in debut (3/27/09). For a video of her warming up, see the above or click here.

I wrote about this back in November, and below are my thoughts:

1) I've always thought it was possible that a woman could be a baseball player in exactly this way--by being a knuckleball pitcher. Throwing the knuckleball has much more to do with precision than strength, and there have been plenty of successful elderly knuckleball pitchers who were very physically unimpressive. Charlie Hough and Phil Niekro come to mind. Jim Bouton threw the knuckleball as a semi-pro player until he was 56-years-old.

2) That being said, Yoshida looks so small and frail that I'm a bit concerned about her ability to handle sharp comebackers. Hopefully she's got good reflexes.

3) She throws a sidearm knuckleball--very rare. The only one I ever heard of doing that was Dan Quisenberry, who only used it for a couple years and it wasn't his main pitch. If she can actually throw this pitch, she may be very durable, considering that the knuckleball takes far less out of your arm than other pitches, and the sidearm motion is more natural than the conventional overhand motion. From the video above, there seems to be very little stress on her arm.

4) One thing that I think will be difficult for her is hitting. Pitchers aren't expected to hit much, but they do have to do it a little. Does anybody know if the Japanese leagues use the Designated Hitter rule? That would increase her chances.

I wish her luck--it'll be interesting to see what happens.

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