Special delivery resulted in a terrific surprise for Dodgers
By the time Hideo Nomo got to Boston in 2001, his celebrity and novelty had faded. That didn't stop him from pitching a no-hitter against the Baltimore Orioles in his first start and reviving a stagnant career.
To have witnessed the whirlwind around Daisuke Matsuzaka during spring training gives you a glimpse of what it was like when Nomo burst on the scene in 1995 with the Dodgers. Nomo, nicknamed "The Tornado" for his unorthodox delivery, threw hard, but it was the deception in his delivery that allowed him to flourish until batters began to figure him out.
Nomo was the first Japanese pitcher to make the jump to the major leagues since Masanori Murakami of the San Francisco Giants in 1964. The only reason Nomo was able to get out of his contract with the Kintetsu Buffaloes was agent Don Nomura exploited a loophole in the working agreement between Nippon Professional Baseball League and Major League Baseball where if a player retired and then elected to resume his career, he was a free agent.
Former Red Sox pitching coach Dave Wallace, who was the Dodgers' pitching coach at the time, can certainly relate to what new Boston pitching coach John Farrell is going through with Matsuzaka.
"Certainly to get the communication part of it down is a major hurdle and it was at the time," Wallace said. "The only thing is baseball tends to be universal. There are common areas there that transcend language, so those areas were easily reconciled.
"[Nomo] was also a very good pitcher with great command and a delivery that was difficult to pick up. With someone that unique, you don't want to do anything to disrupt what was working so well for him in his career in Japan, and there was no reason to do anything unless he went through a rough patch now and then. But he was a joy to work with. There was all kinds of chaos around him with the media and the attention he received, but he really handled it so well."
He certainly didn't disappoint his fans in Japan or the Dodgers. He went 13-6 with a 2.54 ERA in winning Rookie of the Year, and struck out three of the six batters he faced in the All-Star Game. The following year he pitched a no-hitter in Coors Field. It was all good.
"He was a special talent and a very hard-nosed pitcher," recalled Wallace. "He never gave in to anyone. He gave everything he had for as long as he could."
Nomo pitched well for the Red Sox, going 13-10 with a league-leading 220 strikeouts, and followed that up with two 16-win seasons with the Dodgers. But the magic quickly disappeared. In 2003 and '04 with the Dodgers and Devil Rays, he went a combined 9-19 and was not heard from again. There was discussion among baseball scouts in Florida that the 38-year-old Nomo, who won 123 major league games and 78 in Japan, was contemplating a comeback. But to this date, no team has taken a chance.
