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 Noda Hideo Noda Hideo Noda (July 15, 1908 - January 12, 1939), also known as Hideo Benjamin Noda and Benjamin Hideo Noda, was a Japanese-American modernist painter and muralist, member of the "Shinseisakka" () movement in Japan, student of Arnold Blanch, and uncle of Japanese printmaker Tetsuya Noda, as well as alleged communist spy recruited by Whittaker Chambers. Noda was born on July 15, 1908, in Agnew's Village, Santa Clara, California, as the second son of Eitaro Noda, who had emigrated from a small village in the Kumamoto Prefecture of Japan. He returned for some years to his home prefecture in