{"id":68,"date":"2010-03-03T15:06:24","date_gmt":"2010-03-03T15:06:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/inspirationreport\/2010\/03\/female-knuckleballer-eri-yoshida-inspired-by-tim-wakefield.html"},"modified":"2010-03-03T15:06:24","modified_gmt":"2010-03-03T15:06:24","slug":"female-knuckleballer-eri-yoshida-inspired-by-tim-wakefield","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/2010\/03\/female-knuckleballer-eri-yoshida-inspired-by-tim-wakefield.html","title":{"rendered":"Female Knuckleballer Eri Yoshida Inspired by Tim Wakefield"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Rev. Victor Fuhrman<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\n<p>\n<span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\">When I was a kid, I always looked up to sports heroes, especially baseball stars, as a source of inspiration.&nbsp; In the days before the &#8220;baseball business&#8221; became the &#8220;business of baseball&#8221;, many of us daydreamed of being major leaguers.&nbsp; In recent years with the sport tainted by performance enhancing substance scandals and the overall emphasis on mega-dollar salaries, there has been little to inspire young baseball purists. <\/span><\/p>\n<p>\n<span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"mt-image-left\" height=\"190\" alt=\"yoshida.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/89\/import\/yoshida.jpg\" width=\"244\" \/><\/span>That changed yesterday with the story of Eri Yoshida and her hero and inspiration, Red Sox knuckle ball pitcher, Tim Wakefield.&nbsp; Yoshida, a petite 18 year old from Japan and the first woman signed by a professional Japanese team, says she taught herself to throw the knuckle ball as a youngster by watching videos of Wakefield. She had the opportunity to meet her long distance mentor yesterday in Fort Meyers, Florida, while on a trip promoting the independent Arizona Winter League.&nbsp; Wakefield, 43, began his major league career the year Yoshida was born.&nbsp; He gave her some in person advice as she threw a few side-arm knucklers for him yesterday. &#8221; It&#8217;s pretty cool that I&#8217;m able to give back to somebody that wants to carry on the tradition of throwing a knuckleball,&#8221; said Wakefield.&nbsp; <\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>Yoshida told him that her dream was to become a pitcher &#8220;just like him.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>So to the list of names of great knuckleballers of the past like Niekro, Wilhelm and Haines, will soon be added Wakefield and perhaps in a couple of decades, Yoshida.&nbsp; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Rev. Victor Fuhrman When I was a kid, I always looked up to sports heroes, especially baseball stars, as a source of inspiration.&nbsp; In the days before the &#8220;baseball business&#8221; became the &#8220;business of baseball&#8221;, many of us daydreamed of being major leaguers.&nbsp; In recent years with the sport tainted by performance enhancing substance&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":73,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-68","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-inspiring-people"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Female Knuckleballer Eri Yoshida Inspired by Tim Wakefield<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/2010\/03\/female-knuckleballer-eri-yoshida-inspired-by-tim-wakefield.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Female Knuckleballer Eri Yoshida Inspired by Tim Wakefield\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Rev. Victor Fuhrman When I was a kid, I always looked up to sports heroes, especially baseball stars, as a source of inspiration.&nbsp; In the days before the &#8220;baseball business&#8221; became the &#8220;business of baseball&#8221;, many of us daydreamed of being major leaguers.&nbsp; In recent years with the sport tainted by performance enhancing substance&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/2010\/03\/female-knuckleballer-eri-yoshida-inspired-by-tim-wakefield.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Inspiration Report\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-03-03T15:06:24+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/inspirationreport\/files\/import\/yoshida.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"lbrockway\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Female Knuckleballer Eri Yoshida Inspired by Tim Wakefield","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/2010\/03\/female-knuckleballer-eri-yoshida-inspired-by-tim-wakefield.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Female Knuckleballer Eri Yoshida Inspired by Tim Wakefield","og_description":"By Rev. Victor Fuhrman When I was a kid, I always looked up to sports heroes, especially baseball stars, as a source of inspiration.&nbsp; In the days before the &#8220;baseball business&#8221; became the &#8220;business of baseball&#8221;, many of us daydreamed of being major leaguers.&nbsp; In recent years with the sport tainted by performance enhancing substance&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/2010\/03\/female-knuckleballer-eri-yoshida-inspired-by-tim-wakefield.html","og_site_name":"Inspiration 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