Hideo Nomo Hideo Nomo Hideo Nomo (野茂 英雄/Nomo Hideo, born August 31, 1968 in Minato-ku, Osaka, Japan) is a retired Japanese baseball pitcher in Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) and Major League Baseball (MLB). He achieved early success in his native country, where he played with the Kintetsu Buffaloes from to . He then exploited a loophole to free himself from his contract, and became the first Japanese major leaguer to permanently relocate to Major League Baseball in the United States, debuting with the Los Angeles Dodgers in . Although he was not the first Japanese person to play baseball professionally in the
Netherlands national baseball team team. While baseball only maintains a niche following throughout Europe, the Netherlands, along with Italy, are the two European countries where the sport's popularity is strongest; the team has finished in either first or second place in each of the 31 European Baseball Championships in which it has appeared. The team played in the 2017 World Baseball Classic and finished in 4th place. The Netherlands has competed in all four of the World Baseball Classic tournaments held. All sixteen teams that played in the 2006 edition were invited to compete in the second in 2009. The team was an automatic