Ed Note: I wrote this last week as a fun Nomo post-career-mortem piece not even entertaining the possibility he might be signed. Nothing fancy here, just a few obscure moments from a career I’d assumed would be ending any day. Maybe there’s more to come yet.

When you think of Hideo Nomo, you likely think of his windup. The hands stretching high above his head, his eyes following his hands as if they might roll into the back of his head, the long sweeping turn so far to his right he’s nearly facing backwards, before it all explodes forward to release the ball.

When you think of him doing this, you likely see a Dodger uniform. But just four years removed from an NL rookie-of-the-year season in which he finished 4th in the Cy Young balloting, striking out 236 batters in under 200 innings, Nomo wore four uniforms during the 1999 season. Well, four if he managed to put on anything more than a hat during the 24 hours the Phillies signed him for. It was difficult to pinpoint what had happened to Nomo. Some cited shoulder problems, others argued the tornado-like pitching motion had ceased to fool batters anymore.

Manager Phil Garner, who had managed Nomo in Milwaukee during 1999, brought the pitcher with him to Detroit after being fired by the Brewers and then subsequently hired by the Tigers for the 2000 season.

The Tigers signed him to a low risk one-year $1MM deal with a $5.5MM option, but it was clear early on – as the Tigers were going nowhere – they’d signed him in hopes of resurrecting his career to fetch something for him, preferably in a package involving Juan Gonzalez, who was to be a free agent at year’s end. The Tigers, who were 6-18 by May 1 that season, and shopped the pair off-and-on during the entire year, failed to trade either.

Nomo had a decent season by what had become his rather lackluster recent standards, at least managing to stay with one team the entire year — this despite giving up 31 HRs and over a hit per inning. He did manage 181 Ks, which was his highest total in four seasons. But it was still far short of the 230 plateau he’d reached in each of his first three seasons as a Dodger. The Tigers declined his option and Nomo was again a free agent.

Nomo was signed by the Boston Red Sox to a one-year deal worth 4.5MM. The Red Sox were desperate for a starter to put them over the top, having finished second to the Yankees in three consecutive years. Things would get even more desperate a month later when the team would sign a 38-year-old David Cone who was then coming off a career worst season with the Yankees. In 2000 the Red Sox No. 2 starter had been a Martinez, but not the one you’re thinking of – not Pedro of the 18-6 1.74 variety, but rather Ramon Martinez, whose ability to maintain a 10-8 record despite a 6.13 ERA had been a testimony to the Red Sox offense. The 2000 rotation had been rounded out by Jeff Fassero, Pete Schourek, and naturally, Tim Wakefield.

While the contract raised a few eyebrows, Nomo initially paid surprising dividends. On a chilly, windy early April night at Camden Yards, a game delayed 45 minutes due to a power outage, Nomo delivered a revelation for Red Sox fans in the form of a no-hit debut, striking out 11 Orioles and walking three. It was Nomo’s second career no-hitter and he became just the fourth pitcher (joining Cy Young, Jim Bunning and Nolan Ryan) to do it in both leagues. It was also the first at Camden and the first Red Sox no-hitter since Dave Morehead in 1965. Could it be the Red Sox had their answer for a rotation that went deeper than one great starter?

On that day the Sox that were powered by two HRs off Sidney Ponson from the bat of Brian Daubach, who would hit two more, again off Ponson, in Nomo’s next start, a 10-1 whipping of the Orioles the following week. In fact, Nomo won three of his first four starts, and going into an April 26th game versus the Minnesota Twins, batters were managing just .127 off him. Going into the game at Fenway the Red Sox were 14-7 and tied for first.

Nomo’s opposite for that next start was Eric Milton – who that year would go on to be an All-star and win 15 games. The Twins lineup featured Doug Mientkiewicz, who would finish 14th in MVP balloting in 2001, and David Ortiz, who batted cleanup for the Twins that day. With a lefty on the mound in Milton, Daubach rode the pine in favor of Jose Offerman, who played first and batted second ahead of Carl Everett, Manny Ramirez and Dante Bichette.

Nomo walked the first two batters in Matt Lawton and Jason Maxwell, but got Corey Koskielooking, and avoided near disaster when a deep Ortiz rocket to center was hauled in at the warning track by Everett. Mientkiewicz flew out to center to end the first inning.

Nomo would walk three more, but did not give up a hit through six innings. Was is possible that Nomo, nearly a washout at age 32, had come back to the extent that he could throw two no-hitters in a month? Of course, such a feat had only been accomplished by the penultimate no-hit streak — Johnny Vander Meer’s back-to-back jobs in 1938.

Milton, for his part, was nearly as great, surrendering just a run off a bloop single to center by Mike Lansingthat had scored Bichette in the second to keep the game close at 1-0.

But in the top of the seventh Tori Hunter hit a line drive to right. The ball was hit so hard that Darren Lewis, one of the better fielders in the game, immediately jumped back. The ball started to die, but by the time Lewis realized he’d misjudged the ball, it was too late. He nearly made the play, but the ball ticked off his glove and Hunter was safe at first.

The official scorer of the game was Bob Ellis, who was filling in for longtime Red Sox scorekeeper Charles Scoggins, who’d missed the game for personal reasons.

Ellis was the scorekeeper for the Red Sox class-A Lowell Spinners team and didn’t hesitate in calling the play a hit without consulting the replay. The replays, which would be shown repeatedly on newscasts through the night, showed that the play could have easily been ruled an error. But it would stay a hit and Morehead’s 1965 no-hitter would remain the last at Fenway for exactly 366 more days, when Lowe would throw one versus Tampa Bay on April 27, 2002.

Nomo would come back to strikeout Brian Buchanan and A.J. Pierzynski, and got Luis Rivason a flyball to left. But having thrown 110 pitches and with the no-hitter lost, Nomo was removed in favor of Derek Lowe who worked the eighth and ninth for the save.

Nomo would finish 2001, and his Red Sox career, in unspectacular fashion. He lost six of his final eight decisions to close the season. He finished at 13-10 and the team would again finish second in the division, never a serious threat to either the wild card race or the division crown. However, Nomo’s season, or his April anyway, was enough to get him a return ticket to L.A., where he signed a three-year deal.