When Hideo Nomo joined the Los Angeles Dodgers, the public enthusiasm for the pitcher “was like a wave, and it just kept getting bigger and bigger,” Barry Stockhamer recalls.
Stockhamer worked for the Dodgers for 30 years, and when Nomo arrived from Japan in 1995, he was the club’s vice president of marketing. To describe the ensuing crush of media coverage, sponsorship requests and international engagement, Stockhamer has just the comparison.
“It was like a comet,” he says. “Except a tornado.”
