Best Breakthrough Athlete ESPY Award Best Breakthrough Athlete ESPY Award in 1993 was San Diego Pardres outfielder Gary Sheffield. The Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Hideo Nomo of Japan received the trophy in 1996, and is one of two sports persons born outside of the United States to have received the award, the other being Dominican Republican left fielder and second baseman Alfonso Soriano of the New York Yankees in 2003. It has been awarded to one woman in its history, Mo'ne Davis of the Little League Baseball team Anderson Monarchs.in 2015. American football players have been most successful at the awards with eleven victories and
Hideo Nomo Major League Baseball history. He has, to date, thrown the only no-hitters at Coors Field and Oriole Park at Camden Yards. He won the 1996 ESPY Award for Breakthrough Athlete. Nomo was elected to the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame in 2014, only the third ever to be selected in his or her first year of eligibility. At the time, he was also the youngest player ever elected to that Hall of Fame, although his record was broken in 2018 by Hideki Matsui. A song about Nomo, "There's No One Like Nomo" performed by Jack Sheldon, written by Marvin Hamlisch