ESPN Article : JAPANESE PITCHER YUKIKO UENO PERFECT STORM OF POWER AND PRECISION

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May 6, 2013
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San Antonio TX.
Japanese Pitcher Yukiko Ueno Perfect Storm Of Power And Precision

A little except

Think of Yukiko Ueno as one part David and one part Paul Bunyan. She is both the upstart whose arm felled a giant in a sport's most famous moment and a figure whose ability to throw a softball harder than almost anyone else lends itself to a larger-than-life mythology. In her hands, a ball can be both the stone in a slingshot and a big blue ox.

Karen Johns came up with a more meteorological analogy when she first saw Ueno pitch in 2005, three years before the right-hander led Japan to a win against the favored United States in the gold-medal game of the 2008 Olympics. Johns, who would serve as an assistant coach with Team USA for that game in Beijing, went home after her initial encounter with the ace and told her husband she had seen the perfect storm.
 
May 6, 2013
384
0
San Antonio TX.
For some sports stars, potential shines through early - a toddler swinging a tennis racquet as if born to it, a preteen hockey player skating circles around his teammates.

For Yukiko Ueno, it wasn't like that. As a young softball pitcher, she "wasn't that fast and didn't have very much control."

Things changed.


Asked what her favorite thing about pitching is, she comes up with two.

The first is pitching a ball that's different, better in some way than what she's thrown before.

The second is watching the reaction on batters' faces.


Women's baseball has a new flame thrower - The Globe and Mail
 

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