Thursday, December 14, 2006

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: How's the Matsuzaka afternoon going today? Do we know?

QUESTION: Not very well.

QUESTION: Are you going to --

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: It's going well today?

QUESTION: I heard they're flying to Boston.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: Matsuzaka is coming to Boston?

QUESTION: Apparently.

QUESTION: He says there's a lot of --

QUESTION: No, no, no, no.

QUESTION: No, I thought it fell through with the Red Sox.

QUESTION: No, no. He's holding out for a six-party agreement. (Laughter.)

QUESTION: Really?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: I'm really sorry about doing this, but it's very important. He's going to Boston?

QUESTION: Apparently.

-State Department briefing on the North Korean Six Party Talks, 12/13/06

I was at a planning board meeting in a nearby town. The mood was typically all business till I happened to mention to the board members about Matsuzaka. One guy hadn't heard at all. The others were all excited and we talked about that for a couple minutes. The mood of the room totally changed to jovial and gregarious. Everyone laughed at the police escort for Dice K to his physical at Mass. General. But no one questioned it.

This is why I live here. Shared psychosis.

-“Rough Carrigan,” Sons of Sam Horn, 12/13/06

Never boring in this city, is it?

Hajimemashite, Matsuzaka-san!

When all is said and done, count me as rather astonished that we were able to swing this thing for six at $52, plus a boatload of escalators, perks, and sundry other enticements.

Given the distressing public pronouncements about the vast chasm between the two sides’ offers, the teeth-gnashing hand wringing about the possibility that the Matsuzaka could be persuaded by his agent to just walk away, the news that we’re getting him for, at worst, barely more than our reported initial offer is pretty surprising.

Score one for the good guys.

It appears that, in the end, Scott Boras couldn't quite manufacture as much leverage as he would perhaps have liked.

Maybe Matsuzaka-san finally stood up to him and asserted his will.

Or maybe the Seibu Lions weren’t the hamstrung third party, nervously awaiting their financial fate, that we thought they were. I’ve got to admit that their hardball tactics, that reported threat to send him to the minors if he skulked back home, is something I hadn’t even considered.

At any rate, it’s a good thing we got him now, because it’s a sure bet that the posting system is going to be very different from here on out. For better or for worse, too many people (not least of them Scott Boras) agree with the eminent Thomas Boswell when he writes:

Daisuke Matsuzaka is coming to America at a cost to the Boston Red Sox of $103 million, about half to "Dice-K" himself and half to the Seibu Lions.

Half and half? How can that possibly be fair?

As Boswell puts it, the Lions are “swimming in sake now. Seibu, with a dinky $17 million payroll, gets a $51.1 million windfall because it ‘owns’ the rights to Matsuzaka. For doing nothing, Seibu will get a check for three times its annual team payroll. That would be like a league from outer space offering the Red Sox $350 million — three times their payroll — so a team from Mars could try to sign Jonathan Papelbon. Would Boston deserve such a vast sum just for ‘developing’ a star player?”

Maybe, maybe not. But do you think this ownership group wouldn’t take that windfall?

Back to earth: “Arguably the strongest starting rotation in baseball.”

I sure like the sound of that.

All this and Rocket too?

Poor Matt Clement. You’ve gotta wonder how he’s feels right now. At least, at $9,825,000, he makes more annually than his newest teammate. That must be some consolation.

And about that Clemens item: So good to see the Track gals’ poisoned pens are pointed already, barely 12 hours after his touchdown in Boston. Seriously. Already dishing dirt on his “voluptuous” and web-spinning wife? This has gotta be some kind of record.

It’s gonna be a fun six years.

12/14/2006 11:54:38 AM by Mike Miliard | Comments [0] |  
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