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
Hideo Nomo Oriole Park at Camden Yards and made Nomo the first Red Sox to pitch a no-hitter since Dave Morehead in . Nomo also became just the fourth player in baseball history to have thrown a no-hitter in both leagues (joining Cy Young, Jim Bunning and Nolan Ryan. Randy Johnson would later join them, becoming the 5th player after throwing a perfect game in 2004). It is the earliest, calendar-wise, that a Major League Baseball no-hitter has been pitched. Nomo also led the league in strikeouts for the first time since his first season in MLB. A free agent after the