Editor’s Note: An entry on knuckleball has been added to the Sports section to note that it is one word.

knuckleball

One word is an exception to Webster’s New World College Dictionary.

Knuckleball does seem to be the prevailing spelling these days, though it appears to have started out as “knuckle ball.” The Dickson Baseball Dictionary gives both spellings, and notes that its earliest recorded usage came in a 1906 Baseball Magazine story, just as Eddie Chicotte popularized it.

But what’s most interesting about the Associated Press’s change of style, 102 years later, is the story that seems to have prompted it — this dispatch from Tokyo by Eric Talmadge Wednesday about a 16-year-old Japanese girl who hopes to play professional baseball on the strength of her knuckleball:

TOKYO (AP) — Boston Red Sox pitcher Tim Wakefield was the inspiration for a 16-year-old girl who has been drafted to play for a Japanese pro baseball team. …

Eri Yoshida was chosen this week by the Kobe 9 Cruise in the low-budget, four-team western Japanese league, which is due to start its first season in April. She would be Japan’s first female professional baseball player.

Yoshida says she was inspired to learn how to throw the knuckleball after seeing a video of Wakefield.

“It’s funny that I’ve reached that point in my career that people want to emulate me,” Wakefield said. “I’m glad I had people like the Niekros, Charlie Hough and Tom Candiotti that I could look up to. I am deeply humbled that it is me this time.”