Despite Japanese baseball's image as a bastion of gender inequality, Justine Siegal, who in 2015 became the first woman to be hired by a major league team to coach, received a "heartwarming" welcome when she coached a men's pro baseball club here last spring.

"It was heartwarming for them to immediately accept me and immediately start asking questions about how they could become a better pitcher," Siegal told Kyodo News in a recent interview.

"That was really nice, because usually, it's, 'Oh, she's a woman. Does she really know what she's talking about? How can I gain that much from talking to her?'"

From May 29 to June 10, she tutored the Fukushima Red Hopes of the Route Inn Baseball Challenge League. There, players bring pro ball to small venues across central and eastern Japan, while honing their skills and their dreams of playing in the elite leagues of Nippon Professional Baseball.

(Justine Siegal)
[Photo courtesy of Fukushima Red Hopes]

Siegal is the founder of Baseball for All, a nonprofit organization that supports and promotes opportunities for women in baseball. She came at the invitation of Red Hopes president and manager Akinori Iwamura, a longtime NPB star who also spent four seasons in the majors.

In Fukushima, she was introduced to Japan's brand of endless grinding practice, while she herself introduced a new brand of enjoyment into that process.

"I ended up working with the pitchers after a couple of days," she said. "We did our own drills. One of the things that was interesting to them was that we were having fun while we were working hard. We were able to work on our skills in competitive settings that ended up creating a lot of smiles. That was creating a different pace than what they were used to."

Japanese practices can be grueling, and players are expected to focus constantly, leaving little room for smiles. Red Hopes head coach, Osamu Hoshino, who ground, scraped and hustled his way to a 17-year pro career despite being passed over in NPB's draft, could easily be the hard-nosed face of Japanese baseball discipline. However, he welcomed Siegal's help in a sign of positive changes coming to the game.

[Photo courtesy of Fukushima Red Hopes]

"More and more one hears 'baseball should be fun,' but for me, during my playing career, that was something I wouldn't have been able to grasp," he said recently. "How does one enjoy baseball? I had no idea."

"These days in Japan, I think that if we don't make the game fun, kids won't take it up."

At first, Siegal and her charges needed smartphone applications to help them communicate but eventually were able to get their meanings across -- partly due to a Red Hopes roster that includes aspiring ballplayers from all over the world. Hoshino, who has been coaching since his playing career ended in 2005, said communication is the key.

"Coaching is about understanding another person's feelings and explaining something, so it's easy for them to understand," he said.

For that communication to work, both parties need to be engaged, and the Red Hopes players were tuned in.

"I learned a lot talking with her," said pitcher Jorge Rondon, a Venezuelan who has had brief stints in the major leagues and with NPB's Chunichi Dragons.

"It was a good experience. We talked about different situations, how to check the runners on different bases and hold them, how to be focused and slow down. She talked about everything to all the guys."

[Photo courtesy of Fukushima Red Hopes]

A year ago, Siegal had hoped to spend a full season abroad, but the demands of her organization made that impossible. Although she had coached for the Oakland Athletics in the Arizona Fall Instructional League, getting a close-up look at the tempo of Japan's game was still a useful experience.

"As you know, they work so hard. It was amazing to see what that looks like," she said. "We practiced way more hours before the games than we do in the U.S. to get the practice in. Then we wait for our chance to get our pregame in. So there are chances for lots of repetitions."

"We talked about ways to clear our head. How to stop the game, because one of the differences I was finding in that league is that the coach doesn't come out that much when there is a lot happening."

(Justine Siegal speaks at the baseball winter meetings in San Diego, Dec. 11, 2019.)

"It was a very rich experience in Japan. Part of me didn't want to leave. The other part knew that I had Baseball for All activities to get to. It would have been nice to stay longer, but I also needed to get home."

Recently, Siegal became the first woman to be rostered as a coach in Mexico.

"I was in Mexico for about a month. I came through a program called 'Mujeres el Diamante' that the U.S. embassy sponsored. I did clinics with girls and spoke at schools. But while I was there, they had me guest coach with Hermosilla.

Then I was officially rostered in my second game with Mazatlan. There I spent two innings at first base. It was more fun to be involved. I'm still fielding interviews from Mexico, which shows that there's a hunger for more women to play."

During her time in Japan, she met with officials from Japan's professional women's league and said eventually the United States would follow suit with its first women's league since the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League closed up shop in 1954.

"It's going to happen. It's just a matter of time," Siegal said.

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