Eri Yoshida pitcher Tim Wakefield. Yoshida ended the 2010 season with an 0–4 record, but earned praise for her work ethic from team-mates and her manager, Garry Templeton, who noted that any 18-year-old would struggle in the Golden Baseball League. Yoshida played in the Arizona Winter League, an instructional league, in February 2011 but chose to start the 2011 season with an amateur team from Japan that would be playing in Southern California. She signed a contract with the Chico Outlaws of the professional North American Baseball League in July and pitched a no-decision as her team beat the Edmonton Capitals. She
Knuckleball knuckleballs is known as a knuckleballer. The origins of the knuckleball are unclear. Toad Ramsey of the Louisville Colonels in the old American Association—his pitch likely resembled the knuckle curve—and Eddie Cicotte of the major leagues' Chicago White Sox, who in 1908, was nicknamed "Knuckles", are two possible creators of the pitch. Other accounts attribute the pitch's creation to Charles H. Druery, a pitcher for the Blue Ridge League. In 1917, Druery taught the pitch to Eddie Rommel who became successful with the knuckleball for the Philadelphia Athletics. As used by Cicotte, the knuckleball was originally thrown by holding the