The Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA) is reporting that the Boston Red Sox are looking into the possibility of starting the 2008 season in Japan.
Officials from the Japanese City of Yomiuri, who hosts the games in Japan, were to meet with Major League Baseball officials today. Yomiuri is the home of the Giants, one of Japan’s most popular and successful teams.
The Red Sox, according to Gene Orza of the MLBPA, are a logical choice because of pitchers Daisuke Matsuzaka and Hideki Okajima. “I have only briefly spoken with the Red Sox players, so I don’t know what their view on the matter is. But the Red Sox are a logical choice given Matsuzaka,” Orza said.
Among teams as possible opponents for Boston are the Los Angles Angels, Oakland A’s or Seattle Mariners. If the Red Sox open in Japan, that likely would be followed by a series on the West Coast against the same club they play in Tokyo.
“It’s going to be exciting,” Sox third baseman Mike Lowell said. “We’ve got some marquee names that are going to bring a lot of attention over there. So in that sense it’s great, but I don’t think guys are too happy to go 22 hours on a plane to play games that count. It’s not the game itself. It’s the aftereffects.”
Lowell said the distance was the problem for him.
“I know we want to get the game globalized and all that,” he said, “but from a player standpoint East Coast-West Coast is tough enough, and going to the other end of the world is another thing.”
Asked yesterday about the possibility of playing in Japan to start the season on the Boston Globe Pre-Game Show on NESN, Red Sox principal owner John W. Henry replied that “I keep reading about it but there hasn’t been any internal discussion in weeks”.
Reports from the Associated Press were used in this story.
