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Originally Posted by itjclarke
I think Nomo hype being compared to the Yankee dynasty, or the first Cuban players is totally beside the point. It's not like anyone's arguing he was the biggest thing in all baseball, but he was huge in the Asian/Asian American community. And Nomo as a single pitcher who proved that Japanese players could be hugely valuable on MLB rosters is the main point. If there had been a perception pre-Nomo that Japanese could be successful, I think it's totally stunted if he doesn't actually succeed. And I think that also sets the hitters back.
BTW- Murakami isn't forgotten on me. He was a trailblazer for sure, but he supposedly got homesick and went back after his single MLB season. In turn, we didn't seen another Japanese player for 30 years. I think that's telling when it comes to importance of "the first". Had Murakami stuck around, broke into the rotation and had a 10+ year MLB career, I suspect many others would have followed much sooner.
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Maybe that is part of the difference, and possibly another reason Murakami left so quickly. He actually played in two different season, 1964 and 1965, but only had one start. He was basically used as a reliever, and sort of a closer. He actually ended up with 5-1 MLB record, and was credited with 9 saves. He had a not unrespectable 3.43 ERA and WHIP of 0.985, and a very respectable 100 SOs in only 89.1 innings pitched. Certainly wasn't a bust, and obviously had talent. A shame he didn't stick around so we could have seen how his career would have played out. And had he done so, it is quite possible that more Japanese players would have started coming over to play MLB, and/or more MLB teams would have gone over there looking for them, instead of it taking another 30 years or so before more Japanese players started coming.