TODAY IN SPORTS HISTORY… Sept 1st: Major League Baseball’s First Japanese Player Debuts

Masanora Murakami enters a late-season game as a relief pitcher for the San Francisco Giants, becoming the first player from the Land of the Rising Sun to play in the big leagues

On September 1, 1964, San Francisco Giants relief pitcher Masanori Murakami became the first Japanese-born player to appear in the US-based Major League Baseball. The Osuki native threw one scoreless inning, but the Giants fell in a 4-1 loss against the team that once replaced them in the Big Apple, the New York Mets.

Murakami was only 20 years old when he arrived at Shea Stadium, having been sent to the United States by Japan’s Nankai Hawks as part of an exchange arrangement with the Giants. He had impressed enormously while pitching for San Francisco’s Class A affiliate in Fresno, going 11-7 with a 1.78 ERA and 159 strikeouts in 106 innings. The Giants’ brass quickly realized they had something special.

Summoned from the bullpen in the eighth inning against New York, Murakami struck out Charlie Smith with a fastball, surrendered a single to Chris Cannizzaro, then fanned Ed Kranepool with a curveball and Billy McMillan to complete a scoreless frame. The performance made him an overnight pioneer — not merely for Japanese baseball, but for the eventual globalization of Major League Baseball.

Murakami remained with San Francisco for the rest of the 1964 season, appearing in nine games and posting a remarkable 1.80 ERA. His success, however, created an unexpected problem. The Hawks expected their young pitcher to return to Japan, while the Giants believed an agreement gave them the right to retain him. What followed became an international baseball dispute involving the two clubs and the commissioners of American and Japanese baseball.

A compromise eventually allowed Murakami to return to San Francisco for the 1965 season. He went 4-1 with eight saves and a 3.75 ERA in 45 appearances before returning to Japan in 1966. His MLB career was over, but his impact was only beginning. For nearly three decades, no other Japanese-born player reached the major leagues. Then, in 1995, Hideo Nomo arrived — followed by a generation that included Ichiro Suzuki, Hideki Matsui, Yu Darvish and countless others. Murakami had opened the door; baseball eventually walked through it.