Word: nomo
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...Ishii, who spent 10 seasons with the Yakult Swallows before signing a four-year, $12.8 million contract with L.A. in February, is the latest in a line of foreign-born Dodgers pitchers whose talent has lost nothing in the translation. He follows in the footsteps of compatriot Hideo Nomo, the Japanese righthander who was the National League Rookie of the Year in 1995; Korean righthander Chan Ho Park, who won 75 games over the past five seasons; and Mexican lefthander Fernando Valenzuela, who as a 20-year-old in '81 won the league's rookie and Cy Young awards...
...This is shaping up as a big season for Japan's baseball exports. Hideo Nomo, the second player from Japan to play in the majors when he came up with the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1995, has already pitched a no-hitter and a one-hitter for the Boston Red Sox this year. Outfielder Tsuyoshi Shinjo, formerly with the Hanshin Tigers of the Japanese Central League, is captivating New York Mets fans with his bat, his glove and his charisma. And Kazuhiro Sasaki, Japan's all-time saves leader (and last year's American League rookie of the year...
...major league uniforms, including new Seattle Mariners' signee Ichiro Suzuki, perhaps the greatest pure hitter the Japanese game has ever produced. And Japan's national sport seems in danger of becoming a farm system for the American majors. Until this year, only pitchers had ventured abroad, notably Hideo Nomo who took his corkscrew delivery to L.A. in 1995 and won Rookie of the Year honors. But if boyish superstar Ichiro (he goes by his given name) and fellow emigrant Tsuyoshi Shinjo, a dashing slugger joining the New York Mets, both perform as advertised, the exodus will only accelerate. (American players...
...first cracks in the system appeared in 1995, when Nomo, then 26 and one of Japan's very best pitchers, used a loophole in the archaic Japanese baseball-convention rules that enabled him to circumvent free-agent regulations. A poster boy for a new generation of restless youth fed up with the traditional constraints of group loyalty, Nomo was at first heavily criticized by older fans. Japan's hyperactive media labeled him a "troublemaker" and even a "traitor." But when he started humbling Americans with his wicked forkball, suddenly the country that had spent half a century trying to catch...
...Nomo's success inspired so many players to follow in his footsteps that Japan's baseball executives were moved to action. Led by Shigeyoshi Ino, general manager of the Pacific League Kobe-based Orix Blue Wave (owned by Orix Corp., a major leasing company), they came up with a plan designed to close the Nomo loophole and enable management to profit from the growing rash of defections. The so-called posting system gives a player still a year or two shy of free-agent eligibility the opportunity to sign up with a major league team - if that team agrees...