Well, here’s a guy, that…he could have made a lot of money in Japan – just staying in Japan – maybe with a different team, but he risked everything, came over here, and he couldn’t speak much English…I don’t know how he spoke with his pitching coach…but he wanted to challenge himself, challenge…probably Japanese baseball also because he probably thought that American baseball fans looked down at Japanese baseball.
So he had two things to prove – to prove to everybody that Hideo Nomo can make it and also that Japanese baseball is quite…great, so he had two big pressures on his back.
And of course everybody remembers his delivery – very, very…unusual – and I believe somebody named it the tornado, but no…a lot of young baseball players and little leaguers – they copied him. I thought that was really fascinating.
Date: December 20, 2013
Location: California, US
Interviewer: Mark Langill
Contributed by: Watase Media Arts Center, Japanese American National Museum
Journal feed
