Japanese schoolgirl joins the big hitters

Japan's all-male professional baseball league is set to have its first female player after a 16-year-old high school student was drafted by a minor league team.

Eri Yoshida will play for Kobe 9 Cruise as part of a new four-team league in western Japan. "I never dreamed of getting drafted," she told reporters after being chosen this week. "I have only just been picked by the team and haven't achieved anything yet ? I want to play as a pro eventually in a higher league."

Yoshida, who is just five-foot tall, first played baseball in the second grade and went on to play for a boy's team at her junior high school.

Her trademark pitch is the knuckleball, which is difficult to learn and rarely seen in the major leagues. "Her sidearm knuckleballs dip and sway, and could be an effective weapon for us," said Yoshihiro Nakata, her manager.

Baseball is extremely popular in Japan, but women normally play softball or turn out for amateur teams. An all-female professional baseball league was set-up in the 1950s, but it lasted just two years.

But Toshihiko Kasuga, the director of the Women's Baseball Association of Japan, said: "I think her recruitment is in part for the publicity. It would be extremely hard for women to squarely compete against men in any sport."