Hideo Nomo

Nomo pitched over the span of 13 seasons in the American major leagues with 8 different teams, before retiring in 2008. He won the Rookie of the Year Award in 1995. He twice led the league in strikeouts and also threw two no-hitters. He was the only Japanese pitcher in Major League Baseball to throw a no-hitter until the Seattle Mariners\' Hisashi Iwakuma did so on August 12, 2015 against the Baltimore Orioles. Nomo currently resides in Los Angeles.\n', ' Nomo was born into the working-class Osaka 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 As a youth, Nomo was shy and withdrawn, although passionate about baseball.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.\n', ' Nomo graduated from Seijo Industrial High School in Osaka where he grew to 188 centimetres (6 ft 2 in) and 91 kilograms (201 lb). However, he was not selected in the Nippon Professional Baseball draft due to issues with his control. 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.\n', '