Women Baseball: The ‘Knuckle Princess’ Eri Yoshida – Pitching above her Weight
A young baseball player named Eri Yoshida is an athlete with big dreams and an even bigger heart. She plays professional baseball in Japan and in the U.S. Yoshida is in the minor league at the moment, an up and coming pitcher but with more training and coaching she could go pro very soon. The fact that this young woman has managed to accomplish this feat sends a great message to young women everywhere. It seems more women are now thinking about getting into the sport of baseball and that is a step in the right direction.
This inspiring woman first started out by playing baseball in the men’s baseball league of Japan. “Eri Yoshida first made headlines by being the first female to play in the Japanese men’s baseball league. Well it seems like the men couldn’t hang and now she’s becoming the first female professional baseball player to play in North America for over a decade.” What is interesting is that this story brings up the often discussed topic of women playing against men in professional sports. A lot of people think that women because of a lesser amount of physical strength than men cannot compete against them in professional sports. But apparently in certain sports it doesn’t seem to matter that much. The pitch that Eri Yoshida throws is called a knuckleball and it doesn’t need to be thrown with an intense amount of speed; the way it is thrown is more important here. Because of the method of the pitch the ball curves and turns in the air and becomes hard to hit. Eri seems to have had an easier time being accepted into a male dominated sports world, but other women’s sports haven’t been so lucky.
Women’s sports in America and elsewhere have had a hard time integrating into mainstream sports culture. One of the reasons for this was because of the prevalent culture at the time that saw certain sports as not being acceptable to be played by women, such as any contact sport or any sport that was the sole domain of men at the time. “Throughout the mid-nineteenth century the types of sport American women played and their general participation in sport was determined by socio-economic status. It took decades for American women to be permitted to compete in Olympic sports other than those deemed “socially acceptable” such as archery and tennis.”
Over the years though something changed and women started to become more active in sports and defied traditions and societal norms of the time. One major factor in this change was the women’s rights movements of the 60s that fought for the equal rights of women. After this time period though women’s sports flourished and now one of the most dominant and popular women’s sports league is the WNBA.
Despite all these advancements, men and women still don’t seem to play sports against each other. The physical differences come into play here but some sports have forged new grounds and have women and men competing against each other. Tennis is the obvious example here with mixed doubles a regular feature of the game and now it seems baseball is following suit. Whether Eri Yoshida ever makes it to the major league in baseball is to be seen, but if she can break the trend and be the first woman to do so in the country then she will set an unbelievable precedent for women athletes in the country and all over the world.
Women from all over the world will in the near future be competing alongside men in sports leagues and tournaments and the world won’t even bat an eyelid to this fact. It will become the new norm and it will open up a whole new raft of sports and contests and opportunities for women’s sports all around the world. If it does take place, one the world will have a small confident young Japanese baseball player to thank for it, amongst many others!
Tags: