Ayuri Shimano had always felt frustrated in childhood because of the hurdles she had to overcome while pursuing the same baseball dreams as her two older brothers.
While they competed in the prestigious National High School Baseball Championship at Hanshin Koshien Stadium in Nishinomiya, Hyogo Prefecture, Shimano was struggling just to find women’s restroom off the baseball field.
However, her perseverance and skills have put her at a level that even her talented brothers could not reach.
Shimano, 22, is set to play professionally in the United States.
Born and raised in Osaka, Shimano played as a member of the Oyodo Boys, a local hardball team, when she was a junior high school student.
She trained in her spare time to keep up in the team’s practices and close the physical strength gap with her male teammates.
She became the team’s ace pitcher and helped the Oyodo Boys win the Giants Cup, the national competition for junior high schools.
Despite the success, Shimano felt anguish during the season.
There was no women’s restroom near the team’s baseball field by the riverside, so she had to run for several minutes to get to a place where she could relieve herself.
She once suffered from bladder inflammation after waiting until the last minute because she didn’t want to lose her turn in a fungo bat training session.
After winning the championship, she again faced obstacles in elevating her game at the high school level.
The goal of high school baseball teams is to reach the spring and summer national tournaments held at Hanshin Koshien Stadium.
Girls, however, are banned from playing in these tournaments.
Shimano enrolled at Kobe Koryo Gakuen High School, which has a baseball club for female students.
After winning the Giants Cup, Shimano tried to plant the seeds for change in the male-dominated baseball world.
She attracted nationwide attention as “Japan’s best female pitcher” and became much sought after for interviews and appearances on TV shows.
On one program, Shimano called for the introduction of an all-women championship like the Koshien event.
Masahiko Takenaka, secretary-general of the Japan High School Baseball Federation at the time, took action after reading an article about Shimano.
The federation decided that the final game of the national female high school baseball championship would be played at Koshien stadium in 2021 for the first time.
Shimano was a third-year high schooler that year.
Of the 40 teams vying for the crown, Kobe Koryo came out on top, with Shimano getting the final out in the championship game at Koshien.
POST-GRADUATION PLANS
After her high school graduation, Shimano thought about playing in college or even trying out for teams in Nippon Professional Baseball or Major League Baseball.
Around that time, the Yomiuri Giants professional baseball team opened up an opportunity for her.
Tokyo-based Yomiuri announced it would set up an all-female team, and Shimano was invited to join as one of its first members.
She could practice and play games in the same facilities used by professional players, while wearing the uniform of NPB’s most-storied team.
The all-female team, however, was not professional, and Shimano was paid as a staff member of the Giants Academy, which teaches baseball to children.
She made it her goal to be paid for her worth as a professional player and inspire other baseball-playing girls to pursue their dreams.
SOUTHERN COMFORT
Shimano headed to Okinawa Prefecture in March to hone and share her skills.
Although a growing number of senior high schools have baseball clubs for female students, only one exists in Japan’s southernmost island prefecture.
She practiced with the Nanbu Commercial High School’s baseball club and also with an all-female team of a junior high school.
“I never saw female players when I was a junior high school student,” Shimano said. “I wanted to tell them characteristic body movements peculiar to women and the current landscape of female baseball.”
She left the Giants in late 2025.
Shimano is scheduled to go to the United States in spring to prepare for the inaugural season of the Women’s Pro Baseball League. It is the first women’s professional baseball league in the United States in 72 years.
Shimano was drafted by Los Angeles and will play for about two months from August. Fulfilling her goal, she will be paid the equivalent of several tens of thousands of yen per game.
To help cover her living expenses in the United States and baseball equipment, she prepared presentation materials and raised funds from a dozen or so sponsors.
It is her wish to see the league develop into “MLB for women.”
Although she has long faced anxiety and despair in pursuit of her dream, new opportunities often came about at the right moment.
“I tried to shut my mind many times, thinking that it would be easier if I didn’t expect anything,” Shimano recalled. “But, after all, it was hard to keep my mind shut. I just want to create a stage where women can shine. I want to play. I love baseball. That’s all I care about.”
Asked whether she ever wished she was born male, she said: “I thought that way when I was small. That was because I was … saying things like, ‘There’s no Koshien’ or ‘There’s no professional league (for women).
“But I began to accept the situation little by little, thinking that if there isn’t any, I should make one on my own,” she said.
caption 1: Ayuri Shimano pitches in the final game of the national female high school baseball championship held for the first time at Hanshin Koshien Stadium in Nishinomiya, Hyogo Prefecture, in summer 2021. (Takuya Tanabe)
2: Ayuri Shimano, foreground, takes a photo with junior high school students after practicing together in Okinawa Prefecture. (Provided by herself)
Original Source: This article was originally published on Asahi Sports. Click the link to view the full article.