Baseball - Daisuke Matsuzaka Adjusting Nicely To Am

Daisuke Matsuzaka is putting his off-field worries behind him. He is now gearing up for spring training with the Boston Red Sox.

Matsuzaka said that when he was coming to America, he was most worried about the food. However, after coming here, he has found out that the food is great. He thinks that the vegetables and fish available taste just great.

Matsuzaka, who used a translator, said during a new conference that he has been very comfortable in the few weeks that he has been here. The news conference was organized by Scott Boras’ office and it attracted many reporters, photographers and TV cameras.

Boras said that he was impressed by Matsuzaka and he thinks that that the player has an amazing ability to acclimatize quickly to a foreign country. He also thinks that Matsuzaka has a very positive attitude. He further added that he has seen Matsuzaka, who is better known as Dice-K, throw off a mound and Boras thinks that there are very few pitchers in major league who have skills similar to Dice-K.

Scott Boras was the agent who negotiated a $52 million six year deal for Matsuzaka with Red Sox. Boston had to pay $51.11 million to Seibu Lions to win the bid to get Matsuzaka.

However, Matsuzaka’s big adjustment in major league would be being part of a five man rotation, rather than the six man rotation that is prevalent in Japan. For Matsuzaka this would be a new experience and he is trying to build up his overall strength for it. He has been working out for this doing regular weights, running and pitching.

Red Sox pitchers and catchers report for spring training on February 16, 2007 at Fort Myers in Florida. Matsuzaka is excited about it and will finally get a chance to meet his new teammates. While he was in Japan, he picked up major league magazines so that he could memorize the names and faces of his teammates.

There are many Japanese players in the major league now and Matsuzaka wants to use them as a resource to learn more about America and its way of life.