Best-selling author Robert Whiting, who penned an exclusive four-part expose on Bobby Valentine's rise and fall with the Chiba Lotte Marines for The Japan Times this winter, returns with a four-part series on trailblazer Hideo Nomo's legacy on both sides of the Pacific Ocean 15 years after he left Japanese baseball.
Part I will be published on Sunday (a day later in some areas) and run the following three Sundays.
In the first installment, Whiting details the impact of Nomomania in 1995, when Major League Baseball needed any positive news a season after a bitter strike by the players resulted in the cancellation of the World Series.
He also examines how Nomo's brilliant rookie season with the Los Angeles Dodgers opened the door for the future wave of Japanese ballplayers to the United States, including stars Ichiro Suzuki, Hideki Matsui and Daisuke Matsuzaka.
Whiting's baseball books include the seminal classic "You Gotta Have Wa" as well as "The Meaning of Ichiro," "The Chrysanthemum and the Bat" and "Slugging It Out In Japan."