In an article from the Boston Herald, Kevin Youkilis spoke out on Roger Clemens and Daisuke Matsuzaka.

“I’d love to play with Roger Clemens,” the Sox first baseman said. “He’s one of the greatest pitchers in the game’s history, and to be a part of the guy coming back to Boston and retiring in Boston and to be a part of that team and seeing it all, I can’t even put it into words how exciting that would be. And then you’ve got (Daisuke) Matsuzaka here. It could be an electric year with everything going on.”

“For players, it opens up a lot of gates, getting out in Japan,” he said. “That’s another market that loves baseball. Who knows, maybe we’ll all be heading to Japan to do some appearances and hang out there. It would be cool to branch out and go to Japan and have fans there and do something with them. It would be fun.”

“A lot of us are trying to get past the Spanish, (so) this is getting tough,” he joked. “But a lot of us will deal with (Japanese) and try to get some good humor and learn some funny stuff because it’s a hard transition.”

I would totally love to see Roger back where his career started as well but the big question is, Do we really need him? We already have 6 starting pitchers competing for 5 spots, even though the odds are that Jon Lester will start out in Triple-A Pawtucket.

I agree with Youk’s statement about it opening doors in a new a market. I had pointed this out in the Matsuzaka press conference post that the Red Sox will pick up new fans. When the Japanese fans see how Youk plays the game, I think they will enjoy watching him. He’s one of those players who doesn’t mind getting dirty and will do anything to get the job done.

The language barrier will be tough to overcome. I know it was for me when I started out working in baseball. Luckily for me, I had 5 years of Spanish under my belt so I was able to communicate a little with the Spanish speaking players.

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