SAN DIEGO » One of baseball’s most improbable journeys started with the click of a remote.

Five years and tens of thousands of miles later, Eri Yoshida is still just getting warmed up.

The diminutive 19-year-old Japan native has been determined to become the first female major league pitcher since watching Boston Red Sox pitcher Tim Wakefield’s fluttering knuckleball traveling slower than many posted freeway speed limits and eluding the mighty swings of big league hitters.

The 5-foot-1, 115-pound Yoshida, who tips the scales at less than half the weight of many of the hitters she faces, has already stared down gender, cultural and language barriers, as well as some of her own trepidations.

And she hasn’t blinked.

"Many people say girls can’t play baseball," Yoshida said through a translator. "I want to show them that I can."

Yoshida has been proving her critics wrong at every stop since she started throwing a knuckleball on her club baseball team at age 14.

She became a national sensation within a year, earning a spot on her Kawasaki Kita High team in Yokohama as a sophomore.

The latest stop on Yoshida’s journey brings her to Maui. She joined Na Koa Ikaika last week, completing a trade with the Chico Outlaws that was made last month. Through Sunday’s game against the Edmonton Capitals at Maehara Stadium, she had yet to make her Maui debut.

Yoshida is in her third year of pro ball — her second in the United States after playing for the Kobe 9 Cruise, who drafted her out of high school as a junior.

She comes to Maui after spending the summer playing for the San Diego-based Samurai All Japan semipro team in the Western Baseball Association.

Yoshida was just 17 when she made her professional debut for Kobe amid great fanfare in front of a crowd of 11,592 at the cavernous Osaka Dome.

She admitted being nervous, but said, "I appreciate that experience because that helped me grow."

As Yoshida has grown, so has her popularity, with fans of all ages taking to her infectious smile and boundless energy along with her fearless game.

The Japanese media heralded her as the "Knuckle Princess" after she made the high school team, and her popularity has grown exponentially ever since.

"It was so weird," she said of the media exposure, "I couldn’t believe I was on TV. I wonder who came up with that nickname."

Yoshida’s following grew when she was signed to a professional contract by the Outlaws in the independent Golden League last summer (the Outlaws, like Maui, now play in the independent North American Baseball League). She drew sellout crowds for her historic stint at Chico.

The Hall of Fame sent representatives to honor the teen sensation during a game she pitched at Nettleton Stadium, retrieving a jersey and a bat she used from her first game (currently on display at Cooperstown), when she had an RBI single in her first at-bat, becoming the first woman to get a hit in a professional men’s league in more than 50 years. She became the first woman to pitch professionally in two countries, and added a third (Canada) later that summer.

Yoshida rose to the occasion that night with her best professional performance to date, allowing three runs (two earned) in five innings in a 10-2 loss to Edmonton. She also got a standing ovation last summer inside Chico’s City Hall, with the council presenting her with a proclamation of achievement for inspiring the Northern California college town.

"She’s really very special," Chico mayor Ann Schwab said in a telephone interview. "She really brought a spark of life to our city and really a real sense of joy to the sport."

Yoshida said she likes the "Knuckle Princess" moniker even though she’s a bit embarrassed about the "princess" part.

It’s hard to blame her.

Although viewed as royalty by her fans, it would be hard to find a player of either gender who’s less diva-like.

Yoshida’s work ethic has amazed teammates and coaches. She runs sprints up until the time of her warmup tosses on days she starts and does rotator cuff exercises between innings.

After pitching four shutout innings in a 3-0 victory in an exhibition finale against the San Diego Mavericks, she took over bat-boy duties the rest of the game, and even donned a catcher’s mitt to take warm-up tosses from one of her relievers.

"She’s a brave girl," Samurai pitcher Michihiro Koizumi said. "She does everything we do and she never complains about anything."

"She is very friendly and very polite," Samurai outfielder Takahiro Kiuchi said.

Yoshida’s boundless passion for baseball did hit a wall one day earlier this year, however. She was in her Yokohama home with her mother at 2:46 p.m. local time on March 11, when a magnitude 9.0 earthquake struck the northeast coast of Japan, bringing the island nation to its knees.

"I was so scared," Yoshida said. "The windows were shaking and some windows were broken. I thought there would be some buildings destroyed near my house, and then after the big earthquake there were so many small and medium aftershocks, so every time there was shaking I was very scared."

Within a month, Yoshida began working out with her Samurai teammates in Japan. She joined the Samurai because she wanted to be part of the first all-Japanese team to compete in America. She said being able to communicate with her teammates, something she couldn’t do in Chico without an interpreter, aided her development.

It was during her stint with the Samurai that Yoshida retooled her delivery, going from a sidearm pitching motion to a three-quarters delivery, an adjustment she made under the tutelage of Samurai pitching coach Akinori Otsuka, a former major leaguer and her countryman.

Yoshida said the new arm slot has helped her develop better command of a knuckleball that’s notoriously difficult to control. She was often erratic during her stint at Chico last summer, going 0-4 with a 12.28 ERA.

But she’s now more confident with a new delivery that enables her to feature the knuckleball more prominently. Yoshida, who also throws a fastball that tops out in the low 70-mph range and a slider, threw the knuckler at a 40-percent clip last summer.

She threw 80 percent knucklers against the Mavericks in her last game, Samurai catcher Tomoya Sawada said. That’s an encouraging development, according to Maui manager Garry Templeton, who was also Yoshida’s manager last summer in Chico.

"I tried to explain to her last year that if you want to be a knuckleballer, you have to throw knuckleballs," Templeton said.

Commanding the knuckler, however, isn’t the only hurdle Yoshida faces on her way to realizing her big-league dreams.

If and when Yoshida plays affiliated ball, she won’t be evaluated entirely on her merits, Templeton said, acknowledging she’ll have to also overcome some significant gender bias and politics. Yoshida’s playing status has been dismissed as a "gimmick" by cynics, something she acknowledges makes her "not feel very good."

"A professional athlete has to accept (the criticism)," she said

But it is something she’ll have to overcome in trying to convince front offices in affiliated ball to give her a chance.

"She’s not taken seriously," Templeton said. "Most people think of her as a novelty act, but you’ve got to look at her as if you’re looking at one of these guys who are out here trying to make it right now. A lot of it depends on whether somebody likes you and is willing to give you a chance. I don’t see anything different between her and the (male) players."

And then there’s the resentment from players she beats out.

"There’s a lot of factors involved, whether it’s independent or affiliated (baseball), it’s the same everywhere you go. (Guys) get mad," Templeton said. "Last year I had some guy get mad about it and I ended up having to release the guy because he was so furious about it. That’s just how people are."

Yoshida acknowledges she has a long way to go to realize her dream, but she remains dogged in her determination.

"I have kind of a high goal, so I am not satisfied," she said. "My goal is to reach the same level as Wakefield, and I know I have to work harder and harder."

And she’s shown no signs of slowing down.

"There are a lot of things that have to happen, but she’s working hard at it, she’s throwing the very best that she can, so I give her a lot of credit for that," Templeton said. "She wants to make it, and in order for her to make it she has to keep traveling the road that she’s on and keep getting better."

Regardless of where Yoshida’s journey leads, she’s sure to make more headlines. But whether it takes her where she wants to go will ultimately depend on whether her knuckler can consistently find the strike zone.

"If she can command that pitch she can have success at any level because most hitters aren’t used to hitting the knuckleball," Templeton said. "It’s a very hard pitch to hit."