Nomo deserves place in Hall of Fame

TOKYO — Major League baseball’s website took time out Feb. 13 to honor Hideo Nomo in an article by Andrew Simon, noting that 27 years have passed since Nomo first arrived in the States, thereby changing baseball forever. February 13, 1995 was the date the Los Angeles Dodgers officially announced a deal with Nomo.

Normally, things like this are feted at the 25-year mark or the 30-year mark, but as I write this MLB is in the middle of a lockout and sports journalists are running out of topics to write about — which is why you see articles along the lines of “Great reserve players of the past” “The 100 best minor leaguers who never made the majors” and “Best Clubhouse Attendants of All Time.” Whatever the reason, however, Hideo Nomo always deserves to be honored.

It is indeed difficult, as Simon notes, to imagine Major League Baseball today without the likes of Yu Darvish, Kenta Maeda, Masahiro Tanaka, Hiroki Kuroda, Hideki Matsui and the great Ichiro Suzuki.

And what about the two-way superstar Shohei Ohtani, winner of the 2021 AL MVP and just about every other baseball award for last season. He put together the single greatest season in MLB history — indeed, according to a survey by the Sporting News, it was the greatest single season in all of sports history.