Japan had a love-hate relationship with Royals’ Nomo

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Wasn’t this the same baseball world that ignored him for so long? Weren’t these the same people who wanted nothing to do with him? Who threatened to kill him?

Nomura is asked if this is why Nomo makes it such a point to shut out those he doesn’t trust. He laughs.

“Yes,” he says. “And it still is.”

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Japanese baseball is divided in two eras: pre-Nomo and post-Nomo.

He was the first player to transition to the big leagues since 1964, and the first one ever to have substantial success: Rookie of the Year in 1995, when he led the National League with 236 strikeouts.

Back home, business stopped when he pitched. The stock market moved based on his success.

“Shoot,” says Hillman, who managed the last five years in Japan, “back there, he’s probably the Beatles, Fonzie and Elvis all rolled into one. He’s mystical for them.”

Even the reporters who covered Nomo’s early days with the Dodgers called him “the cash cow.” Japanese newspapers paid hundreds, sometimes thousands, for the smallest updates on Nomo. Dodger Stadium attendance rose 21 percent his rookie year.

He won 12 or more games seven times, and threw two no-hitters — including what is still the only one in Coors Field history.

Nomo’s success turned the eyes of big-league executives toward Japan, and it’s been a steady feeding system since.

Japan’s best pitcher (Boston’s Daisuke Matsuzaka), infielder (Houston’s Kaz Matsui), hitter (Seattle’s Ichiro Suzuki), outfielder (the Cubs’ Kosuke Fukudome), catcher (Seattle’s Kenji Johjima) and slugger (the Yankees’ Hideki Matsui) are all in the big leagues now, as well as 10 other Japanese.

Tommy Lasorda once joked that Nomo only knew one word in English: millions. As in dollars.

The Red Sox paid $103 million for Dice-K. The Cubs gave Fukudome a $48 million contract. Major League Baseball does millions and millions worth of business in Asia every year now. Lots of people are getting rich on MLB’s reach into Asia, and Nomo was the beginning of that.

Nomo has learned to live with his outsider status, but his friends say he is fiercely loyal to his inner circle. He still meets with former Dodgers owner Peter O’Malley before every spring training; hasn’t missed one year yet.

He’s given his money to tsunami victims, his time to children’s hospitals, and even bought a few semi-pro teams in Japan — so that the next generation of Japanese ballplayers may have the opportunities Nomo feels he missed.

“He is someone we all look up to,” Hideki Matsui says. “He is very important to us in Japan, someone we all respect. I’ll never question his ability or passion for the game.”

Over the years, Nomo has been replaced in the Japanese baseball conscience by Dice-K, Matsui, Ichiro and other more media-friendly stars.

The emergence of other Japanese stars coincided with Nomo’s decline. He won 16 games with a 3.09 ERA for the Dodgers in 2003 and then fell off remarkably fast: 4-11 with an 8.25 ERA in 2004, 5-8 and 7.24 for the Devil Rays in 2005, and that was it. Three teams cut him within the next year.

Elbow surgery in 2006 put Nomomania in a lengthy rehab that was stalled by physical setbacks. Nobody gave him much of a chance when he struggled in the Venezuelan winter league last year. Nomo’s stature had fallen so far that some big-league executives laughed at Nomura last winter when he asked about a tryout.

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To reach Sam Mellinger, national baseball reporter for The Star, call 816-234-4365 or send e-mail to smellinger@kcstar.com