Osaka Kintetsu Buffaloes times. Bryant also struck out countless times, and holds the top four spots on the single-season strikeout records in Nippon Professional Baseball. Pitcher Hideo Nomo starred for the Buffaloes from 1990–1994 before he exercised a loophole in his contract and "retired," allowing him to sign with MLB's Los Angeles Dodgers. The subsequent wave of players moving to Major League Baseball has become a fixture of Japanese professional baseball. Tuffy Rhodes played for the Buffaoes for eight seasons from 1996–2003, hitting 288 home runs over that span. In the season, he hit his 55th homer to tie Sadaharu Oh's Japanese League
Keishi Suzuki strikeouts in eight separate seasons. With 71 career shutouts, he ranks fifth all-time in Japanese professional baseball. Suzuki was also a fairly good hitter for a pitcher, with a lifetime .209 batting average and 13 home runs in the nine seasons he batted before the Pacific League implemented the designated hitter in 1975. After his playing career, he was the manager of the Kintetsu Buffaloes from 1993 to 1995, where he managed Hideo Nomo (although the two men did not get along). He was elected to the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame in 2002. With 200+ victories, he is also