Hideo Nomo (野茂 英雄) is a Japanese former baseball pitcher who played in Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) and Major League Baseball (MLB).
1965
On May 2, after a month in the minors necessitated by a player's strike, he became the first Japanese-born Major Leaguer to appear in a game since Masanori Murakami in 1965.
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.
1988
Instead, in 1988, Nomo joined Shin-Nittetsu Sakai, an Industrial League team representing Nippon Steel's branch in Sakai, Osaka.
During this time, Nomo slept with a tennis ball taped between his fingers in order to perfect his forkball grip.
Nomo honed his forkball and his control while pitching in the Industrial League.
At the 1988 Summer Olympics, Nomo played for the silver medal-winning Japanese baseball team.
1989
The Kintetsu Buffaloes of Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) drafted him in 1989.
1990
He achieved early success in his native country, where he played with the Kintetsu Buffaloes from 1990 to 1994.
Nomo debuted with them in 1990 and was an immediate success, going 18–8 but more impressively striking out 287 hitters in just 235 innings.
The strikeout numbers were attributed to his unorthodox wind-up, where he turned his back to the hitter, raised his pivot leg, and paused for a second before throwing.
The delivery increased his pitch speed and made it more difficult for batters to spot the ball coming out of his hand.
The windup gave him the nickname "Tornado".
Nomo won the Triple Crown that year.
In his first four seasons, Nomo was as consistent, and consistently good, as any pitcher in Japanese baseball, winning 17 or 18 games each year.
1994
His fifth season in 1994 was marred by a shoulder injury and netted him only eight wins.
Nomo's forkball became famous for being unpredictable for hitters and catchers alike.
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.
Because he was drafted by Kintetsu, the Buffaloes retained exclusive rights to Nomo; however, Nomo's agent, Don Nomura, found a loophole in the Japanese Uniform Players Contract to enable him to become a free agent.
The "voluntary retirement clause" allowed a player who retired to play for whomever he wished after returning to active status.
1995
He then exploited a loophole to free himself from his contract, and became the first Japanese major leaguer to permanently relocate to MLB in the United States, debuting with the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1995.
Although he was not the first Japanese player in American professional baseball, Nomo is often credited with opening the door for Japanese players in MLB, due to his star status.
In 1995, he won the National League (NL) Rookie of the Year Award and was named an MLB All-Star.
He twice led MLB in strikeouts and also threw two no-hitters, including the first No-Hitter in Coors Field history, a ballpark notoriously hard to pitch in due to elevation from sea level affecting pitched and batted balls.
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 5 1⁄3 innings, taking the 2–1 loss against the Quakes.
2008
Nomo pitched over a span of 13 seasons in the American major leagues with eight different teams, before retiring in 2008.
2014
In 2014, Nomo was inducted into the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame.
He currently resides in Los Angeles, California.
Nomo was born in Minato-ku, Osaka, Japan, into the working-class family of Shizuo, a fisherman and postal worker, and Kayoko, a part-time supermarket employee.
As a youth, Nomo was shy and withdrawn, although passionate about baseball.
He developed his corkscrew-style pitching motion in order to impress his father while playing catch.
He believed that rotating from having his back turned to his target would help him add speed to his pitches.
Nomo graduated from Seijo Industrial High School in Osaka where he grew to 188 cm and 91 kg. However, he was not selected in the Nippon Professional Baseball draft due to issues with his control.
2015
He was the only Japanese pitcher in MLB to throw a no-hitter until the Seattle Mariners' Hisashi Iwakuma did so on August 12, 2015, against the Baltimore Orioles.
Nomo was well known for his distinctive "tornado" pitching windup and delivery.
