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 Haga Hideo Haga Hideo Haga (芳賀 日出男 "Haga Hideo", October 10, 1921—) is known for his photography of traditional Japanese festivals and folk culture. Hideo Haga was born in 1921, Dalian, Manchuria on October 10, 1921. He took up the camera as a child, encouraged by his father, an engineer whose hobby was photography. In 1941 he enrolled in Literature at Keio University, where he also joined the camera club, often to the neglect of his studies. Lectures by the folklorist Shinobu Orikuchi (1887 - 1953), which he joined when he heard that he could get credits for attendance, were a