松坂特集 － Ｎｏ．７

When Matsuzaka's pictures came back, the Red Sox were shocked at what they saw. The MRIs were whistle-clean.

"He's a freak," Daniel says, "one of those rare guys that doesn't come around often."

Says Valentine, "I think he will do fine if he doesn't become Americanized. I think they are smart guys in Boston and they 'get it.' But there will be a time when everyone will be writing that he needs to throw more fastballs. The reason so many pitchers throw so many fastballs is because they can't throw their other pitches over the plate with quality. This is one of this kid's strengths."

Farrell, the pitching coach, met with Matsuzaka in January to establish the rough guidelines of a training program. The Red Sox, he said, would make all their resources available to him, and Matsuzaka could adopt whatever elements he chose. "It's been about 80 percent his program, 20 percent ours," Farrell says.

For instance, before Farrell allowed the 103-pitch bullpen session, he won a compromise by having Matsuzaka skip his normal 300-foot toss session the day before. Francona says Matsuzaka will not be throwing in the bullpen after he has been removed from a start, a practice the pitcher sometimes followed in Japan. "I'd be looking for a job the next day [if I let him]," says the manager.

Why don't American pitchers throw as much as Japanese pitchers, or even as much as they used to? The rise of the offensive power game in the majors has made pitching more strenuous than ever; the degree of difficulty in getting through lineups today is much higher than it was 25 years ago. But one club that studied the drop in the American pitching workload found the tipping point to be manager Billy Martin's 1980 A's. Rick Langford, Mike Norris, Matt Keough, Steve McCatty and Brian Kingman -- all of them in their 20s -- completed 93 of their 159 starts that season. Each broke down in subsequent years. The media attention given to Martin's strategy and the pitchers' injuries sent a shiver through managers and clubs. No one wanted to be labeled an arm-killer. A new conservatism grew that eventually led to the development of the specialized modern bullpen, which picks up the innings that once belonged to starters.

Further, as orthopedists such as Frank Jobe, the pioneer of Tommy John surgery, advanced the field of sports medicine, baseball received additional support for the practice of treading lightly with pitchers. Says noted orthopedist Lewis Yokum, "My philosophy, going back to training with Frank Jobe, is that a pitcher has only so many bullets in his arm.

"What we see from a lot of draft picks out of California and Florida is that they get hurt because they're throwing year-round. I like to say, 'Give me a snowfall.' Let them have an off-season."

Mets pitching coach Rick Peterson discourages Little Leaguers with strong arms from pitching at all. He has frowned on his major league pitchers' throwing to bases in routine spring training drills because such throws run counter to the "saving bullets" philosophy.

Managers also know the media's "pitch-count police" will set off alarms if a starter is allowed to throw more than 120 pitches in a game. Baseball Prospectus, for instance, tabulates the ominous-sounding Pitcher Abuse Points, which boils a pitcher's health risk down to a numerical score based on pitch counts. The Diamondbacks' Livan Hernandez rang up the most points last season, 42. (He also led the majors in 2004 and 2005 -- and has never been on the disabled list.) Matsuzaka blew away that total with 176 points in Japan last year, and that was down from a whopping 284 in 2005.

Valentine, who formerly managed the Texas Rangers and the Mets, admits that he too coddled pitchers in the majors, though it took understanding the Japanese throwing philosophy for him to see the error of that accepted practice. "The Japanese pitchers have superior mechanics," Valentine says. "They also have wonderful balance and core and foundation strength. They work the small muscle groups, and [Americans] work the large ones. The large ones make you look better.

Valentine allows most of his starters to throw 200 bullpen pitches a day in the spring. "They have been doing it forever and have not broken down," he says. On the day before a starter takes the mound, he'll throw 90 pitches in the pen and, Valentine says, "have [his] best fastball in the ninth inning" the next day.

"What we feel we know in the States is that fatigue and bad mechanics lead to the operating table," Valentine says. "Yet we don't throw enough to counterbalance fatigue, and the ideas some of the coaches have there are just plain wrong."

Still, the Red Sox and Boras are concerned that pitching in the majors, with a more grueling schedule and deeper lineups, will exact a toll. Matsuzaka was part of a six-man rotation in Japan, where every Monday is an off day, thus making him a once-a-week pitcher. (Last season he made only one start with five days' rest and the remaining 24 with at least six days' rest; he'll normally get only four days off with Boston.) And working on less recovery time, he'll most likely have to work harder to get through lineups that have more power than those in Japan. "He was so dominant in a lot of the games [in Japan]," says Farrell, "he didn't tax himself."

Says Lucchino, "We're trying to take a more Japanese-like philosophy [while looking] at the long-term perspective."

Says Boras, "The greatest concern is ensuring his health not just this year but over the life of the contract and beyond. The history of the Japanese [starting] pitchers who have come here is of concern."

Nomo had three good years for the Dodgers before he was traded at 29 and released at 30, triggering a journeyman's career. Irabu was done at 33. Kaz Ishii was done at 32.

"I'm going to do my best, doryoku, to keep my pitch count low and be able to pitch into the later innings," Matsuzaka says. "I personally feel very ready to accept the major league system."

Says teammate Curt Schilling, who's entering his 20th season, "He is a big league ace in the making. The question is, Does he throw his last pitch at 31 or at 39?"

Matsuzaka, the eight-pitch wonder with the diversionary delivery, is a riddle to big league hitters. The even greater puzzle, however, is what happens when two pitching philosophies collide, when doryoku meets the pitch-count clicker? Even the great Matsuzaka, for all the assuredness upon his face, cannot know the answer until time slowly reveals it.

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多分、SIの最新号の記事の内容だと思う。
明日の夜、仕事の帰りに、渋谷のBook 1stで買うつもりだが、売っているのかな。

松坂特集 － Ｎｏ．５

He was only 5'10". But he threw 90-plus with a nasty hammer. He was throwing 90 to 95 at the beginning of the tournament and around 85 by the end, but nobody could hit him because his command was amazing. I nicknamed him Elvis after that. People would go crazy when they saw him walking around, wanting to take his picture, get his autograph."

Arizona offered him $3.3 million to sign (and Colorado more than $3 million), but Daniel says he couldn't compete with the offer from Seibu, which he estimates at about $15 million plus assorted perks. Matsuzaka was an immediate sensation in the Japan leagues. At age 18 in 1999 he threw 180 innings, had a 2.60 ERA and struck out Ichiro Suzuki three times in one game. The Japanese television network NHK produced a 50-minute program that year entitled Eighteen-Year-Old Daisuke Matsuzaka: The Super Rookie's Spirit and Technique.

Over his eight seasons with Seibu, Matsuzaka compiled a 108-60 record with a 2.95 ERA while averaging a complete game every 2.8 starts. (The major league average in 2006 was a complete game every 33.8 starts.) His 13 complete games last year were more than the staffs of all but one major league team had.

Was he ever removed from a game because of a high pitch count?

"No," he says.

Did coaches keep a pitch-count clicker in the dugout for him?

"No."

Did Matsuzaka ever have a pitch limit?

"I had three managers and various coaches in Japan," he says. "All of them were operating with the understanding that this guy can throw any number of pitches unless I requested to be taken out because I was tired or I was hit very badly. Those were the only two reasons they would pull me."

By 2005, in need of a bigger challenge, Matsuzaka was eager to move on to the majors. Seibu acquiesced to his wishes after the '06 season by officially posting his availability to major league teams, a system agreed upon by Japanese owners and MLB to create an open market for Japanese players (preventing the kind of deal that gave the San Diego Padres exclusive rights to Hideki Irabu in 1997). Teams entered blind bids for the rights to Matsuzaka, the winner paying that amount to Seibu upon signing the pitcher.

Early speculation had the top fee coming in at $20 million to $30 million, roughly twice the $13 million Seattle put up in 2000 for the rights to Ichiro. Glowing reports from Pacific Rim scouts Craig Shipley and Jon Deeble persuaded the Red Sox that they had to have Matsuzaka. Privately they were terrified the Yankees would get him and build a dominant rotation with Matsuzaka; 26-year-old Chien Ming Wang, a 19-game winner last year; and Phil Hughes, who at 20 is considered baseball's best pitching prospect.

Red Sox executives figured New York was capable of bidding more than $40 million. But unbeknownst to them, Yankees G.M. Brian Cashman, who'd gained control of baseball operations, had been pushing a philosophical change to improve player development and curb the team's lavish spending. Cashman bid $33 million (and told people afterward that he felt uncomfortable going even that high).

Unlike the Yankees, whose bid was based largely on Matsuzaka's perceived value, the Red Sox were playing the game. They talked themselves into a $50 million bid as a hedge against the Yankees. Then owner John Henry bumped it to $51.1 million, for extra wiggle room and the uniqueness of the number. "We had to decide what he would be worth as an unrestricted free agent, then get the total price to fall in that range," Epstein says. "Two forces were at work. First, if you don't win the post, you don't get the player. We had strong indications that he didn't want to go back to Japan and would be motivated to sign. And second, the posting money is not counted against the luxury tax."

Henry and Red Sox president Larry Lucchino walked into the offices of Major League Baseball International with their sealed bid five minutes before the deadline. They promptly ran into New York Mets G.M. Omar Minaya and his assistant, Tony Bernazard, who were hand-delivering their own sealed bid: $39 million.

"I'm sure the Mets felt like they had the winning bid," Lucchino said. "The next thing you know, when the bid was announced, everybody was saying, 'The Red Sox bid what? Oh, my god.'"

松坂特集 － Ｎｏ．４

The compact "tall and fall" delivery is technically sound, a Sousa march with no wasted elements. Matsuzaka's free-flowing, drop-and-drive delivery is improvisational, like live jazz. As American coaches would see it, Matsuzaka is coloring outside the lines when he turns his front shoulder slightly away from the hitter and swings his hands and left foot slightly past parallel with the rubber. But in Japan, pitching styles are less rigorously enforced, and Matsuzaka learned from watching.

"As a child I spent a lot of time imitating [Japanese] professional baseball players," he said. "Over time, putting the pieces together, that led to my own form being revealed. Not that it resembles any particular pitcher, but something that evolved naturally through practice."

Now Matsuzaka is the frog in the most famous haiku of Japan's most famous poet. He is hitting the water of the old pond that is major league baseball with an unmistakable splash. Matsuzaka grew up dreaming of such a jump, a wish practically unheard of for the generations of Japanese children before him. When it came to baseball, Japan embraced the island mentality, enchanted by its own leagues and its own rich history and unwilling to risk the possibility of its players' failing in the major leagues. Then Nomo jumped in 1995, did well, and a bridge was built. Matsuzaka was in ninth grade then, with his eye on America.

"Though I am not aware of all the details leading up to his departure from Japan," Matsuzaka says of Nomo, "there was some controversy, and in general it can be said it was not a very healthy departure. That said, to see him single-handedly face this brand-new, challenging environment left a big impression on me and was inspiring.

"As for the risk of [Nomo's] failure, as someone who actually had seen his performance in Japan and seen how great he had been, there wasn't even a thought in my mind that he would fail. That's the way I was thinking in the ninth grade."

Matsuzaka's own legend was born in 1998, when as a senior at Yokohama High he pitched in the famed Koshien tournament, Japan's equivalent of March Madness. Clay Daniel, working at the time for the Arizona Diamondbacks, watched the performance. "I saw him throw nine innings, then nine innings, then 17 innings, come in and close a game for one inning, take a day off, then throw a no-hitter in the championship game," says Daniel, now supervisor of international scouting for the Angels. "In Japan the pitcher wears number 1, the catcher number 2, and so on. He was number 1. After I saw him pitch nine innings he was out there again the next day, and I was thinking, 'Can that be the same little runt wearing number 1?'

松坂特集 － Ｎｏ．３

Better still, is it possible that we can learn more from Matsuzaka than he can from us?

"You better believe it," says Eddie Bane, the scouting director for the Los Angeles Angels. "I think we're going to have to take a look at our system. It's a slap in the face [to Japan] if we don't. And they won the World Baseball Classic, don't forget.

"Their philosophy is, If you're a pitcher, you need to throw. It makes sense to me. We're training our pitchers to throw less. And nobody wants to try anything different. If [Matsuzaka] is this good, we might want to take a look at it."

The Red Sox are betting $103.1 million -- including an industry-rattling bid of $51.1 million just to secure his negotiating rights -- that Matsuzaka is not only the real deal but also will swing the balance of power in the American League East for the next six years, the length of his $52 million contract. The question is not whether Matsuzaka is good enough; it's whether, following his most un-American training regimen while facing deeper lineups and starting games more frequently, his arm holds up.

In January, Matsuzaka sat in the contemporary splendor of the California office of his agent, Scott Boras, and admitted, "If there's any one thing I'm particularly worried about, it's the injury [factor]. My clear intention is to play the entire season healthy.

"Looking at the players that are truly successful, you see the durability and long careers. Those are the players I respect and look up to. I hope to become a player like that."

The old pond
A frog jumps in
The sound of water
-- Matsuo Bashoø

Matsuzaka's pitching motion is an elegant haiku, beauty captured in three parts separated by two pauses that he varies from pitch to pitch. He swings his hands over his head, pauses, lowers his hands as he begins his turn on the rubber, pauses again, then unleashes all the stored energy in a violently quick motion to the plate in which he drops so low that his right knee sometimes scrapes the dirt of the mound. It's like nothing taught in America.

Look around spring training mounds. Pitcher after American pitcher is throwing with a one-size-fits-all delivery largely patterned on Roger Clemens, whom amateur and professional coaches have adopted as their template. There is no swinging of the arms away from the body when the ball is in the glove. The hands remain close to the chest, as if winding up in a phone booth. The pitcher stays tall over the rubber and falls on a downward plane toward the hitter.

松坂特集 － Ｎｏ．２

It's all unheard-of stuff Stateside. But it is explained by the concept of doryoku, or unflagging effort, which in Japanese baseball is seen as a prime virtue. The great home run hero Sadaharu Oh valued doryoku so highly that he included the word in every autograph.

You ask Matsuzaka, through an interpreter, about using ice, the standard American precaution, and what you get first is that knowing smile and a little laugh.

Then he says, "No, never."

Matsuzaka throws eight known pitches -- eight! -- and is tougher than Sanskrit for hitters to read because he has the confidence to throw any of them at any time and can put all of them in an open mailbox from 20 paces. He has the equipment to be the greatest rookie pitching phenomenon since Dwight Gooden in 1984, greater certainly than his forebearer Hideo Nomo, who for all the cross-cultural excitement he generated in 1995 won only 13 games.

More important, Matsuzaka is a potential agent of change. It's his throwing regimen, rather than his place of birth, that makes him the ultimate foreigner to major league baseball. If he succeeds in the U.S., he could transform the accepted industry practice of overprotecting pitchers. The system guarantees diminishing returns: Despite advances in medicine, nutrition and training, teams work pitchers less than ever before and yet pay them more.

"After being part of this for three years," former big league manager Bobby Valentine says by e-mail from Japan, where he's the manager of the Chiba Lotte Marines, "I am convinced we do a bad job of coaching in the U.S. for pitchers."

Fact is, Matsuzaka would not be this Matsuzaka if he had been born in the States. Says Red Sox general manager Theo Epstein, "I'm not even sure he would have been drafted out of high school, as a 5'11" righthander who was pushed like that at such a young age."

Matsuzaka represents a clash of cultures that goes well beyond the standard laundry list of adjustments involving food, language, customs and entertainment. (Good luck explaining sports talk radio to him after the Sox blow a game late to the Yanks.) What happens when a pitcher from the East, this good at this age, meets Western baseball philosophy? What happens when he encounters the pitch-count clicker, that all-powerful totem worshiped by American managers and coaches? What does manager Terry Francona do when Matsuzaka has thrown 120 pitches into the eighth inning? How much do the Red Sox Americanize the pitcher?

松坂特集 － Ｎｏ．１

SI.comより抜粋。土・日にまとめて読もう。
The Riddle
With an array of pitches as sublime and mesmerizing as haiku, $100 million import Daisuke Matsuzaka could tip the American League balance of power to the Red Sox -- and explode the old myths about pampering pitchers

The cherubic face of Daisuke Matsuzaka bears a mysterious contentment, the calm self-assuredness of a kid who knows something you don't, who knows the questions before the exam is given. It's as if the pitching gods have let him in on a great secret, and it's safe with the chosen one.

The look is there even at the end of an exhausting day, in the cramped clubhouse of what the Boston Red Sox call their player development complex, a tract of green fields carved among industrial eyesores in a section of Fort Myers, Fla. Matsuzaka, 26, is still wearing his baseball undershirt and the rest of his uniform, some six hours after he dressed and long after many of his teammates have hit the back nine. Boston's new Japanese import put in the equivalent of heavy lifting for this early in spring training: 80 pitches from flat ground, 50 pitches off the bullpen mound and 50 pitches of live batting practice, followed by an hour of autographs, two press conferences (one to English-speaking journalists and one to the 150 Japanese journalists on hand expressly to record his every word, pitch and breath) and a lengthy sit-down interview with a Japanese television network.

What strikes you now about Matsuzaka, once you get beyond the knowing countenance, is that after all that throwing, never did he bother to ice his arm or shoulder. In major league locker rooms, ice packs are ubiquitous appendages for pitchers, who wrap their shoulder or elbow or both, the better to calm muscles, ligaments and tendons that have been stressed by the unnatural act of throwing a baseball. Relievers are known to ice after facing only one batter in a game.

Not Matsuzaka. He didn't ice after he threw 103 pitches in the bullpen the second time he stepped on a mound in spring training in 2007, more than twice the number of even the heartiest of his fellow Red Sox pitchers. He didn't ice after one of his twice-weekly 20-minute long-toss sessions, when he throws from the rightfield foul pole to the leftfield wall -- a distance of about 300 feet -- while taking only one step to load his arm. (Most pitchers throw half that distance.) In past years with the Seibu Lions, he wouldn't ice even after his frequent 300-pitch bullpen sessions, a program that would have been grounds for dismissal for any major league pitching coach who allowed it.

Then you reflect on the 250 pitches he threw in a 17-inning complete game in high school -- the apex of a stretch in which he threw 54 innings in 11 days -- and the 189 pitches he threw on Opening Day in 2003, the 160 pitches in his second start of the '05 season, the 145 pitches in his penultimate start for the Lions, the 588 innings he threw for Seibu before he turned 21 (Oakland ace Rich Harden, 25, still hasn't logged that many big league innings) and the eight games last year in which he threw at least 130 pitches -- more such games than all major league pitchers combined.