The Making of an Agent - Chapter 1 (Part 4)

The Don Nomura Story

This book, about super agent Don Nomura, the man who took Hideo Nomo to the U.S Major Leagues and opened the long-closed door door to MLB for Japanese baseball players, was originally published in 1999 in Japanese by Bungei Shunju as

日出づる国の奴隷野球: 憎まれた代理人団野村の闘い

The uproar made veteran observers recall the pressure put on another Japanese player who wanted to try his hand in the States, Masanori Murakami, Murakami had been sent to the San Francisco Giants farm team in the mid-60’s on a minor league player development program. When Murakami was suddenly called up to the parent team to become the Giants bullpen ace, it was, to many people back in Japan, as if he had been kidnapped by a religious cult. Very quickly, he became the subject of enormous pressures — including a nationwide media plea from his mother — for him to return to Japan and play where he belonged. It was his patriotic duty, everyone seemed to be saying. After two years of a very big argument between the U.S. and Japanese commissioner’s offices, come back is what he did.

It was a common perception among the public that Nomo was being manipulated by Nomura. But that was not exactly true. In fact, at one juncture, when criticism of Nomo was at its most intense, it was Nomura who was the one who started to have second thoughts about what they were doing, not the other way around.

“I wonder if we are taking the right course of action,” he had said to Nomo.