Hideki Irabu had always dreamed of stepping onto a big league mound.
The 27-year-old Japanese right-hander was just wearing Yankees pinstripes in the Bronx in those dreams, not navy ones at the Q.
Padres President Larry Lucchino had secured a working agreement with Irabu’s employer, the Chiba Lotte Marines, in the winter of 1997, but a hard-line insistence on pitching for George Steinbrenner’s Yankees forced San Diego to deal the “Nolan Ryan of Japan.” The trade was completed on this date — May 29 — that spring after Irabu agreed to a four-year, $12.8 million deal with New York.