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National Baseball HOF President Discusses Greatness of Ichiro Suzuki, Hideo Nomo
Seattle Mariners right fielder Ichiro Suzuki gets ready at the plate during a game against the Oakland Athletics on Match 21, 2019 at the Tokyo Dome. Darren Yamashita-Imagn Images

National Baseball HOF President Discusses Greatness of Ichiro Suzuki, Hideo Nomo

Originally posted on Seattle Mariners on SI
By Teren Kowatsch  |  Last updated Jun 7, 2025 8:00 PM ET

The Seattle Mariners will have its third player in franchise history etched into baseball immortality when Ichiro Suzuki is inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame on July 27 in Cooperstown, N.Y.

Fans who make their way to Cooperstown will get to see a new exhibit at the Hall of Fame, which will honor Suzuki and other Japanese-born MLB players.

Suzuki's influence on the game opened the door for many Japanese-born players to make their way to the major leagues. Other notable players like Hideki Matsui, Hisashi Iwakuma, Yu Darvish, Seiya Suzuki and Shohei Ohtani all made their way to the MLB after Suzuki made his incredible debut in 2001, where he won the American League Rookie of The Year and MVP awards.

Before Suzuki set the baseball world on fire with Seattle, there was Hideo Nomo and "Nomo-Mania."

Nomo made his major league debut with the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1995. He was named an All-Star, National League Rookie of The Year and led the major leagues in strikeouts in 1995. Nomo went on to pitch 14 seasons in the majors with seven different franchises, but his first four-season stint and rookie year with the Dodgers stands out among that decade-plus career. He posted a 2.56 ERA with 236 strikeouts in 191.1 innings pitched across 28 starts in 1995.

National Baseball Hall of Fame President Josh Rawitch's first job in baseball was as an intern with Los Angeles in 1995. He got to witness "Nomo-Mania" in person.

In an appearance on an episode of the "Refuse to Lose" podcast posted on June 4, hosted by Mariners on SI's Brady Farkas, Rawitch discussed getting to see Nomo pitch in his rookie season and compared that experience to seeing Suzuki in person for the first time:

"My very first year in baseball was 1995. So I got to the Dodgers literally as 'Nomo-Mania' was taking off. I think my first month was the start of 'Nomo-Mania.' And so you watched as just massive amount of fans came to the ballpark, and back then, before camera phones, every single pitch was flash bulbs going off all over the building. We were selling sushi and we had tour buses full of fans coming straight from the airport to the team shop at Dodger Stadium. So to see that and then see him succeed as well as he did, and then a few years later, Ichiro came to Dodger Stadium and his first at-bat ever at Dodger Stadium, he went deep. And I remember seeing that and all of us were like 'man, this guy just seems too good to be true.' And sure enough, 20-plus years later, he's going to be standing on the stage here in Cooperstown going into the Hall of Fame."

Fans interested in listening to the whole conversation with Rawitch can listen to the "Refuse to Lose" podcast here:

This article first appeared on Seattle Mariners on SI and was syndicated with permission.

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