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
Toshiya Sugiuchi second round, throwing three shutout innings and being credited with a save. He was also used as a left-handed specialist in the tournament finals against South Korea. On April 5, in his first start of the regular season against the Orix Buffaloes, Sugiuchi struck out five over 7⅔ innings to bring his career strikeout total to 1003. He was the fourth-fastest pitcher in NPB history to amass 1000 career strikeouts (following Hideo Nomo, Kazuhisa Ishii and Yutaka Enatsu), doing so in 979⅓ innings. He became the 318th pitcher in Japanese professional baseball to amass 1000 career innings in a start