A lot of things have got me thinking about the upcoming baseball season: The start of spring training, all of the columns by Tom Trudeau '09 comparing the New York Yankees to the Boston Red Sox and that huge void in February when the football season has ended and there's little in the way of sports to watch on TV.
For me and the rest of New England, 2007 has provided another harbinger of the impending season in the proliferation of the Daisuke Matsuzaka phenomenon. We have been exposed to endless stories of his success as a high school star in Japan, his first news conference as an official member of the Red Sox, even the neighborhood in Boston where he'll be settling down (it's Brookline, by the way). Not even the arrival of Pedro Martinez almost a decade ago can trump the scale of this welcome wagon.
There is a lot of excitement surrounding the arrival of the 26-year-old Japanese dynamo, and there should be. The man can pitch, and his arrival in the Hub not only stabilizes a fragile pitching staff, but also makes the Red Sox a global brand similar to what the Yankees have achieved with Hideki Matsui. Not to mention, it's awesome saying his name - it gives you the feeling that you're in a martial arts movie, and it takes all the energy you have stored up to not start throwing ninja stars.
And yet, as much momentum as the Matsuzaka phenomenon has, I can't help but feel a little skeptical. Obviously, there are no sure things when it comes to baseball, particularly when the topic of discussion is a pitcher. In Matsuzaka's case, he has a second factor that could potentially work against him: the precedent of other Japanese pitchers in MLB.
The Sox are asking their new commodity to be the superstar that he's been since his star turn at the Koshien High School baseball tournament in 1998. Yet all the highly touted Japanese pitchers that have come before him have never been able to reach the same lofty status when they came over to the States. Hideo Nomo had one or two good seasons with the Dodgers before he lost his stuff and started bouncing around from team to team. Hideki Irabu was supposed to dominate with his 95-plus mph fastball, but instead we only remember him as that "fat toad" whose tenure with the Yankees was very short-lived.
Those are the two most prominent names in the discussion of Japanese pitchers that didn't quite cut it in the states, and there are more: Mac Suzuki, Tomo Okha, Kaz Sasaki, Shigetoshi Hasegawa, Shingo Takatsu and Kaz Ishii. All of whom proved to be extremely capable pitchers, none of whom were able to sustain it for more than a season or two. And I'm fairly certain that the Red Sox brain trust signed Matsuzaka with the idea of getting six good years out of him.
I'm not saying that Matsuzaka can't reverse this trend. He's probably the best-looking pitcher ever to come from the Land of the Rising Sun. And I'm not saying that Japanese pitchers can never make it in the majors. If that's what I was saying, I would be stripped of my column-writing privileges and be labeled as an anti-Japanese bigot. What I am saying is that the poor track record of Japanese pitchers is one more factor to consider in Daisuke's first season.
Coming from a columnist whose livelihood has been living vicariously through the Ole Towne Team, this skepticism may seem like a dramatic departure from the norm. Just call it high expectations on my part. When I scream out his name like I'm in a martial arts movie this season, I want it to be because he's done something spectacular.
Chris Mahr '07 throws ninja stars and trains with nunchucks in his spare time.
