By Merv Moore
Sports Director & Head Baseball Coach
Let’s talk about two ballplayers who probably have more in common with each other than with 99% of the guys in their leagues. Their names are Eri Yoshida and Yedlimar De Jesus.
One is a veteran trailblazer from Japan, the other is a rookie making her own history from Puerto Rico. One throws a pitch so weird it’s nearly extinct, the other is just starting her journey on a classic path. They’re separated by an ocean and a decade of experience, but they’re connected by the same stubborn, wonderful dream: to play baseball.
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The Knuckle Princess: Eri Yoshida’s Winding Road
If your dream is to play professional baseball, and you’re a 5-foot-1 woman in Japan, you don’t just follow the map. You have to invent a new vehicle. For Yoshida, that vehicle was a sidearm knuckleball.
Yoshida’s story reads like a baseball fairy tale. At 16, she became the first woman
drafted to play professional baseball in Japan, earning the nickname “Knuckle Princess.” By 18, she was pitching for the Chico Outlaws in California, becoming the first woman to play pro ball on two continents—a feat commemorated in the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.
The knuckleball is her great equalizer. She picked it up as a teen, inspired by Tim Wakefield, when she realized she couldn’t overpower the boys growing around her. Instead, she’d baffle them. It’s the ultimate junkballer’s pitch, a fluttering, unpredictable ghost of a throw that says, “You think you know what’s coming? Think again.”
Her path hasn’t been a straight line. It’s been dotted with injuries and stops in independent leagues from New York to rural Japan. Now in her 30s, she’s still chasing it, most recently returning to a New York indie league in 2023. Why? Because, as she said, “I realized I still wanted to challenge my knuckleball.”
The New Trail: Yedlimar De Jesus’s College Challenge
De Jesus’ pioneering moment is happening right now. After a rookie season in Puerto Rico’s women’s league, she committed to Monroe University in the United States.
This makes her the first Puerto Rican women’s baseball player to earn a spot on a men’s college baseball roster in the U.S. She’s not taking a mythical, knuckling path around the system; she’s walking right through its front door via the NCAA.
Her challenge is different. She’s not a novelty act with one magical pitch; she’s a rookie aiming to prove she belongs day-in, day-out in a structured college program. She’s stepping into the grind of practices, weights, and conference play, aiming to excel by the traditional rules of the game. It’s a huge, brave step onto a well-trodden—but fiercely competitive—path.
⚾ Two Pioneers, One Field
So, what do these two have in common besides incredible guts? They’re both expanding the idea of who gets to play.
Yoshida is the archetype, the one who proved it was even possible. She carved her own niche with a pitch that defies convention, creating a legend that inspires others to try.
De Jesus represents the next logical step. She’s using a more conventional route (college ball) to achieve an unconventional goal, showing that the first pioneer’s path creates visible tracks for others to follow.
One is the determined specialist who changed the game’s perception; the other is the talented all-arounder aiming to succeed within the game’s existing structure. Both approaches are valid. Both are essential.
We’re trying to build a new pipeline for the game here in Bohol, and this is the kind of stuff that fires me up.
Baseball isn’t just about the billion-dollar contracts and the Hollywood endings. It’s about the 16-year-old in Japan mastering a pitch nobody else throws. It’s about the young woman from Puerto Rico packing her bags for a college tryout that’s never been done before.
It’s about the love of the game being bigger than any old rule about who gets to play it. Yoshida and De Jesus, in their own ways, are proving that every single day. And that’s a win for baseball, no matter what the scoreboard says.
Marvin “Merv” Moore is the head coach of the Bohol Coconuts Baseball and Softball Club. He has coached in both Europe and Asia, and helped start the Mister-Baseball and BaseballdeWorld international baseball websites.
