Hideo Nomo - Moving To The Major Leagues

Moving To The Major Leagues

Nomo had become one of the most popular baseball players in Japan but after the 1994 season, Nomo got into a contract dispute with team management. The Buffaloes rebuffed Nomo's demands to have a contract agent and multi-year contract. Instead of working things out with the Buffaloes, Nomo and his agent, Don Nomura, "exploited a loophole in the agreement between Japanese baseball and the major leagues: if a player retired, he was free to play for whomever he wished." This led to him heading to the U.S., where in February 1995, the Los Angeles Dodgers signed him.

Nomo made his U.S. pro baseball debut with the Bakersfield Blaze on April 27, 1995, against the Rancho Cucamonga Quakes. Placed on a 90-pitch limit, and throwing mainly fastballs, Nomo pitched 5⅓ innings, taking the 2–1 loss against the Quakes. Despite this loss, and after a month in the minors, necessitated by a season shortened by a player's strike, he became the first Japanese-born Japanese Leaguer since Masanori Murakami in 1965, to appear in a major league game on May 2. He was also the first Japanese-born player to relocate permanently to the American major leagues, as Murakami played only two seasons with the San Francisco Giants and then returned to the Japanese major leagues for the remainder of his career. The pressure on Nomo would be tremendous, and Japanese media and fans appeared in large numbers in games he started. Nomo's games were regularly broadcast live to Japan, despite the fact most people would be waking up when he started games.