Nippon Professional Baseball players like the Lee brothers, Leron Lee and Leon Lee, Greg "Boomer" Wells, Randy Bass, and Ralph Bryant playing key roles on their NPB teams. In 1995, star pitcher Hideo Nomo "retired" from the Kintetsu Buffaloes and signed with the Los Angeles Dodgers. Nomo pitched over the span of 14 seasons in the Major Leagues before retiring in 2008. He won the Rookie of the Year Award in 1995. He twice led the league in strikeouts, and also threw two no-hitters (the only Japanese pitcher to throw a no-hitter in Major League Baseball until Hisashi Iwakuma achieved the feat in
History of baseball outside the United States Hideo Nomo, Kazuhiro Sasaki, Ichiro Suzuki, Hideki Matsui, Kazuo Matsui, Tadahito Iguchi, Kenji Johjima, Daisuke Matsuzaka, Yu Darvish, and Masahiro Tanaka. Japan defeated Korea to become champions of the second World Baseball Classic on March 23, 2009 in Los Angeles. Baseball was introduced in the Philippines shortly after the start of American rule in 1898. In 1954, the Philippines won the first Asian Baseball Championship, its only ever victory. Since the 1960s, it struggled to keep up with Japanese, South Korean, and Taiwanese teams. While the Philippines remained high for an Asian country in the World Baseball Classic rankings, it