Japan's 1st Major Leaguer recalls playing with MLB legends

Thirty-seven years before Ichiro, there was Masanori Murakami -- the first Japanese player in Major League Baseball history, who played alongside Willie Mays, struck out Hank Aaron and … bunted for a hit against Sandy Koufax?

Yes, Murakami, a left-handed pitcher who played two seasons for the Giants in 1964 and '65, has some legendary stories from his time in the Major Leagues. And he recounted the best of them last week in New York, on his way back from Ichiro's Hall of Fame induction ceremony in Cooperstown.

"Mashi," who's now 81 years old, stopped by Yankee Stadium on Tuesday, where he threw out the ceremonial first pitch. Afterwards, he reflected on some of his most memorable moments from playing with, and against, many of MLB's most iconic players.

• Masanori Murakami, the overlooked trailblazer

It's been 60 years since Murakami pitched in the big leagues as a 21-year-old, but he remembers those days well.

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There was the time, in the summer of 1965, that the Giants were playing the Pirates.

"I was outside the dugout," Murakami recalled, via translator Satoshi Mizutani. "It was a hot day. I had my shirt off, just cooling down. And there was a guy that was walking across from me."

"He asked me, 'Do you know me?' And my answer was 'No, I don't know who you are.'

"And he goes, 'I'm Roberto Clemente.'"

Back then, baseball scoreboards didn't have the players' names on them, just their numbers and positions. So Murakami didn't have a way to identify the Hall of Famer just from his uniform number.

Clemente had a question for Mashi.

"He asked me, 'Who do you think is better -- Willie Mays, or me?'" Murakami said. "And at that time, Willie Mays [was on his way to] 52 home runs and the MVP. So I told him: 'Willie Mays.' And when I told Roberto Clemente that Willie Mays was better, his eyes got super big. He was so angry."

And that's how Murakami made Roberto Clemente mad.

Clemente took two plate appearances against Murakami that season. He walked once, and Murakami struck him out once. The list of Hall of Famers who Murakami struck out in just a season-plus in the Majors is long and illustrious. It includes Clemente, Aaron, Eddie Mathews, Willie Stargell, Ron Santo, Lou Brock, Dick Allen, Billy Williams -- and Frank Robinson, whom Murakami K'd three times … once, bizarrely, pitching to an empty batter's box because Robinson refused to take his turn at bat with the Giants blowing out the Reds, 18-5.

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Then there was the time, also in 1965, that the Giants went to Cincinnati to play the Reds. And another mystery player approached Murakami.

"Someone goes, 'Hey Mashi! For you to succeed in Major League Baseball, you gotta have these.' And he rolled up his sleeves, and his forearms were as big as my thighs," Murakami said.

"And that was Pete Rose."

That's how the MLB Hit King, 24 years old at the time and in his first All-Star season, flexed on Murakami.

Rose wound up hitting two home runs off Murakami in his career -- but Murakami struck Rose out the first time he faced him.

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Or how about all the memories Murakami has of playing with his Hall of Fame teammates in San Francisco -- like Juan Marichal.

Murakami has known Marichal since he was a rookie in 1964 who was still getting used to life in the United States, let alone life in the Major Leagues.

"The first night when I got called up to the big leagues, I didn't know what to do after I checked into the hotel," Murakami remembered. "But I was very hungry. I was scared to go outside, so I just went down to the lobby. And I saw Juan Marichal having dinner."

Marichal called Murakami over. He asked: "Are you the Japanese pitcher?"

Murakami replied: "Yes." He was the Japanese pitcher, after all. As of that day, he was the first ever in the big leagues.

Marichal invited Murakami to join him for dinner.

"I didn't know what to order," Murakami said. "So I just yelled, "Same! Same!" -- for the food that he ordered."

And that's how a 26-year-old Juan Marichal and a 20-year-old Masanori Murakami became friends. Murakami has remained friends with Marichal over the decades, and the two reunited in Cooperstown at the 2025 Hall of Fame weekend.

Murakami even closed out the game in which Marichal infamously hit Dodgers catcher John Roseboro over the head with a bat, sparking a benches-clearing brawl between the old rivals, on Aug. 22, 1965. It was one of the nine saves Murakami collected in the Major Leagues (using the modern definition -- saves weren't an official MLB statistic until 1969, four years after Murakami left the Majors to go back to Japan's Nippon Professional Baseball). He remembers that one particularly vividly.

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But let's save maybe the most fun story for last. The story of how Murakami got a hit off of Sandy Koufax.

Keep in mind that Murakami got a grand total of two hits in his MLB career. And one of those -- his first career hit, in fact -- somehow came against one of the best pitchers of all time.

It was June 29, 1965. The Giants were playing the Dodgers at Candlestick Park. Murakami, who came on in relief of Bob Shaw in the top of the third, found himself up at bat against Koufax in the bottom of the inning.

This was a lefty relief pitcher batting against Sandy Koufax -- maybe the greatest southpaw in the history of the game, who was about to win his second Cy Young Award, pitch a perfect game and lead the Dodgers to the World Series championship that year.

But Mashi was determined to take his hacks. On the first one … he missed. By a mile.

"When I faced Koufax, the first pitch, I swung -- and the ball was way above where my bat was," Murakami said. "I thought to myself, 'There's no way I'm going to get a hit against this guy.'

"So the second pitch, I just bunted towards third base. And that's how I got my hit against Koufax."

Yes, you read that right. Murakami had the audacity to drop down a bunt against Sandy Koufax -- and by some miracle, it worked.

That's how Murakami bunted for a hit off the Dodgers legend in the middle of one of his greatest seasons.

Last weekend at the Hall of Fame ceremony, Koufax and Murakami saw each other in Cooperstown. They reminisced about that moment, one of the many Murakami can recount about his time as an MLB trailblazer.