Matsuzaka mania

FORT MYERS, Fla. - Baseball’s version of a rock star is coming to Fort Myers, Fla., this week. If you hope to get his autograph, you better brush up on your Japanese.

His name is Daisuke Matsuzaka (say it Dy-SU-K Matt-SU-Sock-ah), a pitching sensation from the Land of the Rising Sun who will make his major league spring training debut with the Boston Red Sox when the team’s pitchers and catchers have their first workout in a week.

Baseball fans coming to watch spring training in Southwest Florida for the next six weeks can expect to see a sideshow unlike anything they have seen before here.

As many as 100 Japanese sportswriters and photographers will arrive this week to chronicle Matsuzaka’s inaugural spring training.

Many of them will get here Monday, when Matsuzaka – known by his nickname “Dice-K” – steps off a plane from California, where he has been preparing for his first season in Major League Baseball.

The rest will flock around and within the Red Sox minor-league facility off Edison Avenue in Dunbar. Red Sox pitchers and catchers report for spring training Friday. A special news conference for Matsuzaka has already been announced for Thursday in Fort Myers.

Those journalists covering Matsuzaka will come close to matching – if not outnumbering – the estimated 130 Japanese Americans who live in Lee County.

The Red Sox have installed two extra media trailers to give them a place to work.

“Coverage here is tops and like a blanket,” said Wayne Graczyk, a 32-year resident of Japan, where he began covering baseball for The Japan Times in 1975. “There are seven daily sports newspapers sold at train stations, convenience stores and home delivery.

Each has gaudy, huge color headlines, and nothing is left uncovered.”

Matsuzaka signed a six-year, $52 million contract, and the Red Sox paid his Japanese team, the Seibu Lions, $51.11 million for the right to negotiate with him.

The money and Matsuzaka’s talent will generate intense interest for fans here and abroad, said Deborah Yo, a marketing consultant and native of Japan, who’s a part-time Bonita Springs, Fla., resident.

Matsuzaka, 24, became a sensation in Japan when he pitched a no-hitter for Yokohama High in the national high school tournament title game in 1998.

“Now, it’s like he is Japan’s favorite son taking on a big challenge, with the whole nation cheering and expecting,” Yo said. “Since his signing news was so huge, beyond the usual baseball news – it was even in the financial pages – I think everyone, including non-baseball fans, will be curious and excited to see how big a deal he is and if he is really worth the money.

“So this spring camp is not just a camp, but a very first chance for fans to see for themselves.”

Red Sox media relations director John Blake called his counterparts with the Seattle Mariners and New York Yankees for advice. Those teams have handled large groups of Japanese journalists on a regular basis because of outfielders Hideki Matsui (Yankees) and Ichiro Suzuki (Mariners).

Blake, who worked for the Texas Rangers for 20 years, said he has never had to handle anything like Matsuzaka’s arrival.

“There’s really no comparison, but the one guy we had was Chan Ho Park,” Blake said of the Korean pitcher who played for the Rangers. “We had five beat writers from papers in Korea who traveled with us all the time to cover him. But it’s not nearly the numbers that we’ll have.”

Extra shuttle buses will be provided to transport fans and journalists between City of Palms Park and the minor league facility, he said.

Doreen Arsenault, marketing manager for the Boston Red Sox gift shop at City of Palms Park, ordered 288 T-shirts with three different Dice-K designs that cost $22 or $25.

“It’s going to be like a frenzy down here,” Arsenault said. “I think people are going to be doubly excited.”

“The coverage of the top Japanese players by the media here is exhaustive,” said Jack Gallagher, sports editor of the Japan Times. “The Japanese take a great deal of pride in the performance of their countrymen, and the interest becomes exponential when they succeed.”

Fans this season will have a different experience, Graczyk said.

“The main difference will be the presence of the Japanese media,” he said. “They will be all over the place, and Matsuzaka will probably have to give a sit-down interview every day in Japanese.

“He is so popular here because he is young, handsome and a great pitcher. He has lots of charisma.”