If you listen closely enough on opening day, you’ll almost certainly hear some baseball fan invoke the name of former Cubs outfielder Karl “Tuffy” Rhodes. Rhodes’ best day in the Majors, by far, came on opening day in 1994, when he went 4-for-4 and hit three home runs off Dwight Gooden.

In Major League circles, Rhodes’ name is usually referenced to caution fans against getting too excited about players’ stats in small samples, or as an example of the quirky fun that comes from extrapolating opening day outcomes: Tuffy Rhodes, for one glorious day, was on pace to hit 486 homers in a 162-game season.

But to fans across the Pacific, Rhodes is much more than that. And looking at his career in retrospect suggests Rhodes likely didn’t get a long enough look in the Majors, and that he was far too good to be dismissed now as a one-day wonder.

Rhodes was drafted by the Astros out of high school in 1986 and rose through the low levels of the minors at a very young age, showing precocious plate discipline but little to no power. His slugging numbers started increasing at Class AAA ball in 1990, and Rhodes made his big-league in August of that year, a couple weeks before his 21st birthday.

But Rhodes never really got regular Major League playing time before his big day in 1994, even though his Class AAA stats kept improving. Rhodes hit .318 with a .991 OPS at the level at age 24 in 1993. After his three-homer start to 1994, he played pretty well through May, but slumped in the summer and saw his playing time dry up by July.

After 41 big-league at-bats in 2005 and some more productive hitting in Class AAA, Rhodes signed with the Osaka Kintetsu Buffalos in Japan’s Pacific League. There, Rhodes became one of the greatest foreign-born hitters in NPB history, slugging 464 home runs with a .940 OPS over 13 seasons and tying Sadaharu Oh’s single-season home run record with 55 in 2001.

In an interview with the Cincinnati Enquirer last year, Rhodes said he blames no one for himself for failing to make good on his potential in the United States, admitting that he didn’t have his priorities straight while he was playing in the minors. But his minor league numbers and his dominant stats in Japan suggest he probably could have had a longer Major League tenure if he had gotten a few more breaks.

Instead, he remains “Opening day legend Karl ‘Tuffy’ Rhodes,” a guy who hit over 500 home runs in his professional baseball career but will be best remembered in the Majors for hitting three.