This past weekend saw a couple of great articles about Boston Red Sox rookie pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka, about whom Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports writes “should be the Red Sox’s No. 1 starter by the end of the season” notwithstanding what Curt Schilling or Josh Beckett might say.

New York Times sports reporter Jack Curry wrote an article; Masterpiece: Glimpses of Greatness in Arm of Teenager which speaks of Matsuzaka from a perspective of his astounding performance eight and a half years ago in a prestigious Koshien high school tournament.

Matsuzaka is said to completed a 17 inning, 250 pitch game which his Yokohama team finally pulled out by a 9-7 score over PL Gakuen.  Like the Eveready Bunny, he kept going and going and going.
Curry writes;

Across the last four steamy days of the tournament, he threw an astounding 535 pitches. 

“When he was finished at Koshien,” said Craig Shipley, Boston’s vice president for professional and international scouting, “he was a legend.”

Matsuzaka may be the closest to possessing the “bionic arm” in recent decades.  His story kinda reminds me of a science-fiction draft I read a few years ago written by sc-fi scion Hyam Yona Becker, author of the novel “The Temple of Hashem.”

The draft was about a young kid of South American, Russian extraction who once threw a baseball soo straight and soo hard that he konked a multi-billionaire on the head hundreds of feet away.  This fictional character threw a baseball soo fast that his every 126 mph fastball registered on the Richter scale.  The story goes that they had to import an aging minor league catcher from South America because he was the only catcher who could catch this phenom.  And in the story, this bionic fastballer was, of course, signed to a major league deal by — the Boston Red Sox who, in their fictional pitching-starved condition, trotted him out to start every game.  The fiction knew nothing of Schilling, Unit during his years with the Sox, Beckett, Tim Wakefield, etc. Unfortunately, the fiction has not made it beyond the draft stage — yet.

However, as Curry writes and as we all know by now;

This winter, the Boston Red Sox bid $51.1 million for the right to negotiate with him, then signed him to a six-year contract worth an additional $52 million.

With all of the incentive clauses in the contact, if Matsuzaka successfully exhibits the Japanese work ethic, that additional $52 million could mushroom to somewhere in the $60 millions.

                          
The Red Sox seem to be doing their part.   Gordon Edes of the Boston Globe Staff writes;

Team executives carry business cards printed in English on the front, Japanese on the back. “A question of respect,” said Chuck Steedman, vice president of Fenway Enterprises and broadcast services.

No obstacle is too big. The Sox have literally knocked down ballpark walls to accommodate the large contingent of Japanese media that will be following him. “We’re expecting over 100 Japanese members in spring training, and 50 a game on a regular basis during the season,” said media relations director John Blake, who has arranged for two additional trailers to handle the media crush in spring training, which opens Friday at the team’s minor league facility in Fort Myers, Fla.

New staff? The Sox have provided Matsuzaka with a Japanese-speaking trainer, a Japanese-speaking media liaison (a longtime friend of his wife, Tomoyo), a personal interpreter, and a personal masseuse. An English instructor has been hired to come to spring training and also will be with him during the season.

“We’ve talked extensively to executives from other clubs who have had Japanese players on their teams, in order to learn what has and has not worked in transitioning the players,” said Brian O’Halloran, assistant to general manager Theo Epstein.

Extra effort? New pitching coach John Farrell has been studying Japanese with a tutor. “A humbling experience,” he says. Catcher Jason Varitek has already received DVD copies of Matsuzaka’s starts in Japan so he can become acquainted with his new batterymate. Traveling secretary Jack McCormick helped line up housing (apartments for Matsuzaka and his staff in spring training, and a leased house — in the Brookline/Chestnut Hill area, his agent, Scott Boras, hinted — during the season). Equipment manager Joe Cochran soon will be contacting Japanese restaurants in the Boston area about catering meals to the clubhouse.

So let’s hope that Matsuzaka retains his Japanese work ethic, stays away from negative influences, develops to full potential and doesn’t turn into a typical spoiled, coddled player.  He’ll be awesome to watch.

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This entry was posted on Monday, February 12th, 2007 at 1:12 pm and is filed under All Time Baseball Highlights, Real-Time Baseball News and Commentary, All Time Pitching Highlights, Off-Season Deals, Trades, Free Agency, Draft. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.