The man who opened MLB’s door to Japanese players

It has been 60 years since Masanori Murakami walked to the mound at Shea Stadium in New York — humming the hit song “Sukiyaki” to calm his nerves — to make his MLB debut for the San Francisco Giants on Sept. 1, 1964, at age 20.
The results from the night hardly matter — though Murakami performed well, striking out two in a scoreless eighth inning. A report from The New York Times the next day noted Murakami received a “brisk round of applause when he left.”
The night was important because it was the first time a Japanese player had appeared in an MLB game, cracking open a door many would walk through decades later.
Before Shohei Ohtani, Ichiro Suzuki or even Hideo Nomo, there was Murakami, a young left-hander sent to the U.S. by the Nankai (now SoftBank) Hawks to learn from MLB coaches who became a surprise hit and was later at the center of an international tug of war.
“I never thought I would be called up to the MLB level,” Murakami said at the The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan in Tokyo on Monday. “I was only supposed to be there for three months, but luckily I was doing well in the minor leagues.”
He pitched in MLB for two seasons as a reliever — he made one start in 54 appearances — and was 5-1 with nine saves and a 3.43 ERA across 89⅓ innings. He was teammates with MLB greats like Willie Mays and Orlando Cepeda and met Jackie Robinson. Items from his career are on exhibit at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.
Murakami was also an important figure in the Japanese American community, where many had dealt with discrimination and hard times during and after World War II. Murakami recalled an instance during his career where he tossed a rosin bag in the air after disagreeing with an umpire about a strike call, joking that he was “almost the first Japanese player thrown out of a game.” Sometime after that game, he said, an older Japanese American man shook his hand and praised him for standing up to the American umpire.
Murakami was in some ways an accidental trailblazer.
He was born on May 6, 1944, in Otsuki, Yamanashi Prefecture. His father was drafted into the Japanese army that year and was later captured by the Soviet Union. Murakami did not meet his father until he was 4 years old, and said he was a strict and difficult man.
Murakami’s father had seen wounded soldiers during his time in the military and wanted his son to study to become a surgeon instead of playing baseball, once angrily confronting one of Murakami’s teachers upon finding out his son was playing baseball for the school team.
“He wanted me to help those people who were injured,” Murakami said.
Murakami, however, kept playing, and was soon scouted by powerhouse Hosei University Daini High School. While playing there, Murakami was noticed by Nankai manager Kazuto Tsuruoka, who had led the team to a Japan Series title in 1959 and who offered him a spot on the team.
Murakami turned him down.
“Tsuruoka probably felt that I was such a weird guy to turn down the offer from a championship team,” Murakami said. “But as he left, he told me that if you come to Nankai, I will make sure we send you over to the United States.
“Back then, it was not a normal thing to make an overseas trip. Normal people could not even get on commercial flights back then, especially not high school kids right after graduating. I remember the ticket was almost ¥300,000 for an economy class seat. I also really liked the American drama ‘Rawhide’ back then. So it was sort of my dream to go to the States.”

The 18-year-old signed with the Hawks in 1962 and spent virtually all of 1963 in the minor league. In the spring of 1964, the Hawks sent Murakami and two young teammates to train in the Giants’ system as part of an agreement between the teams. A clause in the deal said the Giants could purchase the contracts of the Japanese players for $10,000 each — which later became a point of contention between the two sides.
Murakami ended up with San Francisco’s Single-A affiliate in Fresno, California, and found success on the mound. He had an 11-7 record and 1.78 ERA in 49 games for the Fresno Giants in 1964 and was named the California League Rookie of the Year.
The Giants, in the thick of a pennant race, called up Murakami to the MLB team when the rosters expanded in September, and he made the trip from California to New York to join the team for a game against the Mets on Sept. 1.
Murakami, who did not speak much English, was unaware that he needed a new contract to play in MLB games. A team official offered him one to sign during practice before the game, but since Murakami could not read it and did not fully understand what was happening, he refused to sign it.
“I was probably the first player back then to refuse to sign a MLB contract,” he said.
The Giants found someone in the stands to translate for the young Japanese player, who signed just before the game and made his historic debut that night.
Murakami performed well in his first season. He did not allow a run until his ninth and final appearance and was 1-0 with a save and a 1.80 ERA in 15 innings. He was also popular with his teammates and Giants fans. San Francisco, having uncovered a diamond, sent $10,000 to the Hawks to make Murakami’s move permanent.
Nankai, however, saw things differently (it said the $10,000 was a bonus for Murakami reaching the majors) and insisted the pitcher, who had returned home after the season, remain in Japan. That sparked an intense international debate between the two sides with Murakami caught in the middle. Murakami wanted to remain in the majors, but had also signed a contract with the Hawks and was facing pressure from Japan.
A compromise was reached by which Murakami would pitch for the Giants in 1965 and then return to Japan. The incident led to the 1967 United States — Japanese Player Contract Agreement, which kept MLB closed to Japanese players until Nomo and his agent Don Nomura found a backdoor during the mid-90s and opened the floodgates.
Murakami went on to pitch 17 more seasons in Japan for Nankai, the Hanshin Tigers and the Nippon Ham Fighters. He was 103-82 with a 3.64 ERA overall during his career in Japan.
Though the man who paved the way for stars like Ichiro and Ohtani to fully realize their MLB aspirations did not get the same chance, he nonetheless seemed pleased with his place in baseball history on the 60th anniversary of his MLB debut.
“I think if I stayed another year, I could have probably extended my career in the U.S. for five or six more years, because I was getting better and better toward the end of my career in America,” he said. “So it was unfortunate that I had to come back. At the same time, I was able to keep a promise with Tsuruoka. I’m very proud that I did not break my promise to him, because he kept the promise he made to me.”