Hideo Nomo to active status. This led to him heading to the U.S., where in February 1995, the Los Angeles Dodgers signed him. Nomo made his U.S. pro baseball debut with the Bakersfield Blaze on April 27, 1995, against the Rancho Cucamonga Quakes. Placed on a 90-pitch limit, and throwing mainly fastballs, Nomo pitched 5⅓ innings, taking the 2–1 loss against the Quakes. On May 2, after a month in the minors necessitated by a player's strike, he became the first Japanese-born Major Leaguer to appear in a major league game since Masanori Murakami in . He was also the first Japanese-born
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