Hideo Nomo

Today Hideo Nomo announced his retirement.  He was the first Japanese star player to make to the jump to MLB and as luck would have it, he played for the Dodgers.  There was a tremendous amount of excitement that year, Nomo was an international superstar.  He had a strange and deceptive windup which is a trademark of Japanese pitchers that makes it difficult for hitter to time the release point.  I was fortunate to be at dodger stadium to witness Nomo's first win.  

Nomo also won the rookie of the year award that year, he was part of the ROY domination of the Dodgers in the mid ninties.  Karros, Piazza, Mondesi, Nomo, and Hollandsworth.  Nomo was the pioneer and now we have Hiroki Kuroda who almost pitched a perfect game for us a couple weeks ago, we also had Ishi, and our closer is Takashi Saito, who unfortunately is on the DL for 6 weeks.  The Dodgers have always been at the forefront in recruiting new talent, starting when the great Branch Rickey brought in Jackie Robinson in 1947.