On this date in 1995, Dodgers right-hander Hideo Nomo became the first Japanese-born player in Major League history to be selected for the All Star Game. Nomo, then a 26-year-old rookie, took the big leagues by storm with his tornado windup and by posting a 1.99 ERA and 11.9 K/9 in 13 first half starts. The All-Star Game was just the tip of the iceberg for Nomo, who went on to win the Rookie of the Year award and finish fourth in the NL Cy Young voting.
Nomo's big league career spanned a dozen seasons with seven teams, and he retired with a 4.24 ERA and two no-hitters to his credit. He's credited with paving the way for Japanese players to permanently relocate to MLB.
Here are a few links from around the baseball blogosphere…
- Phoul Ballz interviewed Hall of Famer Andre Dawson.
- 1 Blue Jays Way interviewed Toronto prospect Kevin Ahrens.
- Bullpen Banter offers up a mid-season review of players who showed up to camp in the best shape of their lives.
- DRaysBay puts together a wish list of players they really want the Rays to acquire.
- Prospect Insider runs down the top prospects of the contenders in the Cliff Lee sweepstakes.
- Feeling Dodger Blue says the time has come for Los Angeles to trade Matt Kemp and Russell Martin.
- Mets Paradise wonders if the Mets would be interested in acquiring Carlos Zambrano.
- Double Bobby Jones doesn't think Jerry Manuel should feel too comfortable despite the Mets' winning ways.
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Who is this Andrew Dawson fellow?
I really didn’t see anything informative on that Rays blog article. 3/5ths of the guys the author mentioned were on teams that aren’t going to be selling.
During the off-season I was intrigued — and even posted here about it — with the Mets acquiring Zambrano for a deal packaged around Angel Pagan. The Cub fans on this site jumped all over me (and to be fair, their first experience with Pagan was awful). But now, as things have played out, I’d have to step back from that.
Z’s blowup the other day was downright scary. He’s exceptionally talented and I hope for his sake he works things out. And since Beltran won’t be back until next week at the earliest, literally halfway through the season instead of the end of April as was originally reported, the Mets would be nuts to trade Pagan. He’s played great this year and there are still too many question marks about Beltran.
I just finished reading the Zambrano article and that guy is beyond nuts. He’s talking about Castillo + Perez maybe = Zambrano? How about Castillo + Perez = Zambrano + 10-15M? That sounds quite a bit more like it. To top it off, he says the Mets should inquire with the Giants about them trading Lincecum!
He was being sarcastic.
I’m not surprised to see a blog called “Feeling Dodger Blue” act irrationally. Maybe we can trade the blogger and Garret Anderson to the Newark Bears for Darryl Ward.
Some bloggers try and be controversial by saying stupid things to get attention. Unfortunately they just come across as well, stupid.
Feeling Dodger Blue actually thought that Seattle would trade Felix! LOL!! That was a good one!
Actually got an autograph from “The Hawk” at my local minor league stadium on the First, and he was a really nice guy, one thing I noticed is that he took the time with each autograph, it wasn’t a pre-determined scribble.
And he’s still got some arm strength left, he almost overthrew the ceremonial first pitch.