#MLBVideos: Hideo Nomo changed MLB forever (and took the league over too) | MLB Deep Dive

Hideo Nomo changed MLB forever (and took the league over too) | MLB Deep Dive

before there could be an Ichro Suzuki slashing his way to the Hall of Fame or a Shoi Otani both hitting and pitching at an all-star level there had to be a Hideo Nommo we’re going to tell you the incredible story of a baseball barrier breaker the story of how the right-handed Japanese pitcher known as the tornado blew winds of change through MLB that reverberate to this day 30 years before Iro’s induction Nomo Mania enraptured baseball fans and compelled teams to respect Japanese baseball in a way they simply had not before paving the way for a wave of game-changing talent that story actually begins about 4 years before Nommo was born it was 1964 a Nepon professional baseball team called the Nankai Hawks sent three prospects to the United States to play minor league baseball in a sort of cultural exchange program the idea was to have them learn from working with US coaches and then come back home to Japan with new knowledge and training techniques what was not necessarily expected was that one of those prospects would reach the major leagues his name was Masanori Murakami a southpaw who was named the California League Rookie of the Year while pitching for the Fresno Giants San Francisco’s class A team mashi as he was known to the American players who struggled to pronounce his name correctly was promoted to the majors on September 1st 1964 becoming the first Japanese-born player to appear in Major League Baseball he had instant success as a reliever but what followed at season’s end was a dispute between the Giants and Hawks over Murakami’s contractual rights the two sides ultimately agreed that Mashi could pitch for the Giants in 1965 and after that season he voluntarily returned to Japan to honor his obligation to the Hawks and MLB and NPB looking to prevent any such contractual confusion in the future in 1967 agreed to a player contract agreement that basically kept Japanese players in Japan and American players in the United States hideon was born the following year for three decades players like NMA were bound to the terms of the MLB and NPB agreement japanese stars no doubt noted how across the Pacific free agency and other collective bargaining advances ballooned player salaries nommo himself began pitching in NPB with the Contu Buffaloos in 1990 and established himself as one of the league’s best pitchers he was 21 years old in his rookie season when he captured the pitching triple crown and was named the league’s rookie of the year pitcher of the year and MVP after that season Nommo pitched in an exhibition against a traveling squad of MLB stars and made an impression “the great Randy Johnson approached Nommo during that trip and told him he was wasting his time playing in Japan.” “You belong in MLB,” the big unit told the Japanese hurler a seed had been planted by 1994 nma was frustrated with his pay his manager and his inability to challenge himself against the world’s best competition he became connected with an agent named Don Neamora who along with a lawyer named Gene Afterman scoured the US Japan agreement looking for a loophole they found one when they realized that the rules forbade a player on the active roster or restricted list in NPB from signing with an MLB team but said nothing about players on the retirement list they realized that if Nommo could somehow compel the Buffaloos to force him to sign retirement papers essentially banning him from NPB he would be set free so they hatched a scheme nmo would demand from the Buffaloos a contract so outlandish so outrageous that the team would bring the hammer down enraged and flabbergasted by Nommo’s perceived misconduct the Buffaloos retired him not realizing they had just given him precisely what he wanted nommo spoke with a few MLB teams but it was the Dodgers who had championed diversity with the signing of Jackie Robinson nearly 50 years earlier and who could draw from a large Japanese population in Los Angeles who asserted themselves in the negotiations on February 13th 1995 they signed the 26-year-old Nommo to a minor league contract with a $2 million signing bonus now I want you to say this i want you to learn how to say this say I I bleed bleed dodger Dodgers blew blue a pittance when compared to today’s baseball blockbusters in Japan many people were furious with Nommo his father even stopped speaking with him for a while and in MLB there was concern as to what the Nommo deal might mean there was sensitivity about the idea of poaching a player from Japan and fear that the reverse might happen but there was also genuine curiosity about what this pitcher with the corkcrew delivery and plummeting fork ball could do with this unique opportunity the baseball world found out in that 1995 season nmo wasounded by the American and Japanese press in his every move after arriving to the Dodgers spring training camp in Vero Beach Florida the scrutiny continued in an uneven first month or so in the majors well just to give you some idea of what it means for Hideon Nommo to leave Japan and come over to the United States he has been the Japanese leader in pitching four out of five years in in victories and strikeouts but despite all the pressure all the attention all the anger back home so he can throw everything else but he put it in the wrong spot i’m going hit out of the ball first but I like him though i hear he’s a good player and the two-1 pitch and Bond swings and misses to make it two and two nommo found his stride that summer it began in earnest on June 2nd when he held the Mets to a run on two hits with six strikeouts 5 days later it was another one-run 8inninging effort against the Expos and on June 14th Nommo pummeled the Pirates with 16 strikeouts in another 8 in gem by the time Nommo posted consecutive complete game 13 strikeout shutouts against the Giants on June 24th and the Rockies on June 29th Nommo was an unstoppable force and the term Nomo Mania referring to the big crowds and big TV audiences his every outing drew was born in a 13 start span from June 2nd through August 10th Nommo averaged nearly eight innings per outing posted a 1.31 erra held opponents to a poultry 419 OPS and struck out nearly 30% of the hitters he faced he was even named the starter for the National League in the All-Star game appropriately against Randy Johnson the future Hall of Famer who had encouraged him years earlier nommo and the Big Unit both pitched two scoreless innings in that Midsummer Classic by season’s end Nommo’s 13-6 record 2.54 ERA and NL leading 236 strikeouts had helped the Dodgers win their division by a single game for his efforts Nommo was named the NL Rookie of the Year beating out future Hall of Famer Chipper Jones in 1996 Nommo Mania continued nommo finished fourth in the NL Sai Young voting for the second straight season and on September 17th at Kors Field of all places he had the signature night of his prime one out away and Ellis Burks is standing in Nommo’s way of a no hitter the picture will tell the story ah shut up got him hideo Nommo has done what they said could not be done not in the Mile High City not at Porsfield in Denver he has not only shot out the Rockies he has pitched a no hitter and thank goodness they saw it in Japan the Nomo No was the first and as of this recording only no hitter in that extreme hitters ballpark alas the fever around Nommo began to die down the following year as opponents got more comfortable facing his delivery his ERA rose to 4.25 in 1997 and would be comfortably over four for the next five seasons after that it’s possible that Nommo’s early career workload in Japan caught up with him between June 1998 when the Dodgers traded him to the Mets and December 2001 he bounced around seven different organizations but Nommo did flash some reminders of the mania that once was while with the Red Sox on April 4th 2001 he threw his second career no hitter this time against the Orioles the first no hitter in the history of Camden Yards left air to left coming on and Hideo Nomo is no hit the Baltimore Orioles the Red Sox win their first of 2001 nommo also managed to put together consecutive stellar seasons in 2002 and 2003 when he returned to the Dodgers and pitched to a combined 3.24 erra across those seasons after struggling again in 2004 with LA and 2005 with the Rays and then getting cut by the White Socks at the AAA level in 2006 Nommo’s career appeared to be over though he did attempt to mount a comeback with the Royals in 2008 getting out of a jam by retiring his countryman Hideki Matsui with a strikeout in his first relief appearance not long after the Royals released him that April Nommo announced his retirement and so because of a brief peak Nommo only garnered a handful of stray votes on his first and only Hall of Fame ballot in 2014 but he did enter the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame that year his past supposed transgressions forgiven in a brave new baseball world that now routinely saw Japanese stars enter MLB through the posting system that was created in 1998 in part because of the precedent Nommo had set the man who caused all that noise in Japan and the US in 1995 retreated to the background in retirement quietly working as an adviser to the Padres’s beginning in 2016 this made his legacy all too easy to forget but the creative means by which Nommo had made himself available to pitch in MLB opened up the floodgates for a wave of talented Japanese athletes to play the game at the highest level so while Nommo did not have a career deemed worthy of Coopertown his impact as a trailblazer was massive and his story is one that all fans of an increasingly globalized game ought to know

When Hideo Nomo came to MLB, it had been almost 30 years since a Japanese player had come to the league and play in America. His crazy story to come play in MLB then paved the way for Ichiro Suzuki, Shohei Ohtani, and so many other Japanese MLB players. All while being absolutely dominant in his first season in the league for the Dodgers

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