Best Breakthrough Athlete ESPY Award Best Breakthrough Athlete ESPY Award in 1993 was San Diego Pardres outfielder Gary Sheffield. The Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Hideo Nomo of Japan received the trophy in 1996, and is one of two sports persons born outside of the United States to have received the award, the other being Dominican Republican left fielder and second baseman Alfonso Soriano of the New York Yankees in 2003. It has been awarded to one woman in its history, Mo'ne Davis of the Little League Baseball team Anderson Monarchs.in 2015. American football players have been most successful at the awards with eleven victories and
Hideo Nomo control. Instead, in 1988, Nomo joined Shin-Nittetsu Sakai, an Industrial League team representing Nippon Steel's branch in Sakai, Osaka. During this time, Nomo slept with a tennis ball taped between his fingers in order to perfect his forkball grip. Nomo honed his forkball and his control while pitching in the Industrial League. At the 1988 Summer Olympics, Nomo played for the silver medal-winning Japanese baseball team and the Kintetsu Buffaloes drafted him in . Nomo debuted with them in 1990 and was an immediate success, going 18–8 but more impressively striking out 287 hitters in just 235 innings. The strikeout