http://soxblog.projo.com/2010/03/wakefield-meets.html Wakefield meets the 'Japanese schoolgirl knuckleballer' Mar 01, 2010 by Dan Barbarisi Tim Wakefield got a chance to meet his unlikeliest protege this morning. Eri Yoshida, the so-called 'Japanese Schoolgirl knuckleballer,' who broke the gender barrier in Japanese baseball when she pitched in Japan as a 16-year-old in 2008. Now 18, Yoshida is in America pitching in the Arizona Winter League, and she made a special trip to Florida to meet the man who taught her to pitch, via video. "He was exactly the same as I imagined. But even playing catch, he gets so much more movement than I imagined. So I was very amazed by that," Yoshida said through a translator. She thrilled at the chance to shake hands with Wakefield, and was delighted to hear that the 43-year-old knuckleballer had seen video of her pitching in Japan. "I watched practice here, and I was so amazed by that, I was really happy about that," Yoshida said. Yoshida began playing baseball at seven years old, but at barely five feet tall, she was just another athletic girl. She wanted to pitch, but couldn't throw much faster than 60 mph. Then she came upon video of Wakefield throwing his knuckleball, and in her backyard, she and her father tried to copy the motion. She didn't get much movement at first, but once she dropped down to a sidearm motion, she was tough on right-handers and got lots of movement. She was good enough that she was signed to the Japanese independent leagues, where she was successful enough to move forward. This winter, she came to America to try her hand against the college players of the Arizona Winter League. They hit her hard at times, but she adjusted. On February 12, Yoshida threw four shutout innings to lead the Yuma Scorpions to a 5-0 win. "Here, all the batters have big power, and they swing a lot. The ones they hit, they'll be big hits, and that's a big difference between Japan and the United States," she said. "I learned a lot, countless things. Things on the mound, and how to use the body, mechanically, I learned that," she said. She now hopes to transition into Nippon Professional Baseball, Japan's equivalent of the major leagues. Yoshida also met and posed for pictures with Daisuke Matsuzaka, Junichi Tazawa, and Hideki Okajima - but she was too tongue-tied to say much around these Japanese superstars. --

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