Eri Yoshida to Become the First Female Pro Baseball Player in Japan

A Japanese schoolgirl is making headlines across the world today as the first woman to play pro baseball in Japan. Not only that, but she’s only 16 and coming straight out of high school. Eri Yoshida was drafted by the Kobe 9 Cruise, a pro team in an independent league in Japan.

"I always dreamed of becoming a professional," Yoshida, who is 5-feet (152-centimeters) tall and weighs 114 pounds (52 kilograms), told a news conference Monday. "I have only just been picked by the team and haven't achieved anything yet."

Yoshida’s special pitch that got her noticed is a side-arm knuckleball and her goal is to follow the path of fellow knuckleballer Tim Wakefield of the Boston Red Sox.

Wait, can this happen like, anywhere, specifically in America? Like, if a girl just happens to be good enough in a particular sport, can she join the men’s league? I mean they’ve done that in NASCAR and F1 racing, but those aren’t really sports.

It’s obviously not going to happen in say, pro football, or basketball, or hockey. But maybe in say, baseball or soccer? What do you think about inter-sex league integration? Maybe girls’ points count as double?