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
Hideo Ochi gave his belt -which was almost white- to a boy blackbelt from Venezuela, when he asked Master Ochi for a picture for his birthday. Now, he is wearing a new black belt. Hideo Ochi Hideo Ochi (born February 29, 1940, in Saijō, Japan) is a Japanese master of karate. He is ranked 9th "Dan", and is a former Japan Karate Association (JKA) World Champion in "kumite" (sparring) and "kata" (patterns). He was also coach (European Championship in 1971, 1972 and 1975) of the German national team and Chief Instructor for JKA Europe. In 1997, he received the Order of Merit