Very interesting story here. Masanori Murakami was the first Japanese MLB player by a wide margin -- by 30 years! The story is that Murakami's NPB team, the Nenkai Hawks, sent he and two other players over the San Francisco Giants to gain minor league baseball experience in America as "exchange students" (The players were all still in high school at the time, despite playing professional baseball). However, Murakami was particularly dominant, winning rookie of the year for the Fresno Giants (The Giants single-A team at the time). Originally, the three players were scheduled to return to Japan in June; however the Hawks decided to let them finish out the season. Well, in September, the Giants were impressed enough by Murakami that they called him up to the big squad, where he dominated over 14ish innings. This sparked a great argument between the NPB and the Giants about whether Murakami could stay with the Giants. The Giants cited a loophole in the contract and claimed he could stay with them, and the Hawks disagreed vehemently. Eventually, the two sides struck a compromise which allowed Murakami to pitch for the Giants in 1965 before returning to Japan. He pitched pretty well in 45 appearances that season posting a 3.75 ERA.

This set is more or less like the Goudey or Play Ball set of Japan. 1967 Leaf is a very valuable set which was way ahead of its time. It contains one of the greatest baseball players of all time during his playing days -- Sadaharu Oh (The most professional home runs of all time, except for perhaps Josh Gibson. The difference? Oh did it in 124 game seasons. Unreal).

Everyone remembers Nomo-mania who was a baseball fan back in mid-90s. He was never as dominant as he was in his rookie season again, but he paved the way for other Japanese players to play in America.

He broke the "sea border" by exploiting a loophole in his NPB contract. His agent pointed out that if a player retired, there was nothing stopping the player from playing in a different league. Thus, in 1995, Nomo "retired" from the NPB and signed with the Dodgers. The so-called Working Agreement was rewritten after that, which gave Japanese players more of a chance to play in America, which opened the floodgates.

Suzuki only played in the NPB for 2 seasons after a lot of time in the minors and majors. It didn't go so well. He also played a long time in the Mexican leagues.