Matsui Media Mania

Victory Field was treated to a bit of celebrity on Monday night when former New York Yankees star Hideki Matsui came to town with the visiting Durham Bulls.

Matsui, who was an American League all-star in 2003 and 2004 and the Most Valuable Player of the 2009 World Series, has been on the down curve of his career for the past few seasons. In seven seasons with the Yankees, Matsui was a .292 career hitter with 140 home runs and 597 RBI, but after a season with the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (.274, 21, 84) and a season with the Oakland Athletics (.251, 12, 72), the man nicknamed "Godzilla" didn't have a team going into spring training this year.

Funny, I figured he'd bear a more striking resemblance to the giant lizard monster.

The Tampa Bays Rays signed Matsui to a minor league deal on April 30 and he has been working his way through the minor leagues in a  personal spring training. Care to venture a guess how well it has gone? Look at his face up there. Yeah, that about sums it up.

Following a lackluster 0-for-2 performance against the Indianapolis Indians, in which he looked very bad striking out twice, Matsui was batting .170 in 13 games with Durham, hitting no home runs while totaling just four RBI and a disconcerting 10 strikeouts.

Still, the native of Kanazawa, Japan, was once a household name amongst even casual American baseball fans. And he's a little bit more popular in his native Japan, where he spent ten professional seasons with the Yomiuri Giants, winning three Japanese Series championships.

With every celebrity encounter comes a dose of celebreality, and Matsui's manifested itself in the form of 35 members of the Japanese media following the former slugger around the minor leagues. Reporting to places like Japan, New York City and Tampa Bay, these videographers, photographers and writers filed into Victory Field on Monday afternoon to cover a guy hitting A BUCK SEVENTY IN TRIPLE-A!

In case the absurdity isn't clear, consider that the Indianapolis Indians are 29-21 and in first place in the International League's West Division but cannot convince the Indianapolis Star to come cover a game.

Apparently being a Japanese-born baseball player in America is a really big deal. And one reporter implied that Matsui is more popular in Japan than even Ichiro Suzuki, the face of Japanese baseball for most American fans. So 35 media members are following him around the minor leagues, covering his every move and capturing on video and in photographs every breath the man takes.

They even lined up along the warning track in front of the first base visitors dugout, waiting for several hours in the sun and intense heat to get a shot of him stepping onto Victory Field for the first time during pregame warmups. He never came out. After covering the game, they all filed into an auxiliary locker room deep in the bowels of Victory Field for a press conference, which didn't start for over an hour after the game had ended.

It looks harmless enough, until you realize you can only see 1/7 of the attendees.

The irony of the situation, from an outsider's perspective, wasn't lost on all of the Japanese reporters. I spent several minutes before the game talking to Yoichiro Takahashi, a friendly guy who spoke English very well and was nice enough to give me his business card (or else he would be unnamed in this blog).

Yo, as he asked to be called, works for Cosmomedia America, Inc., in downtown New York. The company telecasts American baseball games to Japan and in America with Japanese commentary via a pay channel called Japan TV. Yo was hoping that soon Matsui (and his media entourage) would be headed to the Tampa Bay and the major leagues. "We already told the people in Durham, 'Goodbye and thank you,'" Yo said with a laugh, implying hope that they would not be returning.

And Yo got his wish. Despite his poor numbers, Matsui was called up after Monday night's game and is expected to join the Rays before tonight's game against the Chicago White Sox. I guess the Tampa Bay brass figured they needed all the help they could get after Sox starter Chris Sale victimized the Rays for a Tropicana Field-record 15 strikeouts on Monday night.

Regardless, Victory Field will be a much quieter place on Tuesday night as the Indians host the Bulls in game two of their current four-game series. I wish I could have spent a little more time getting to know Yo, but I wish him all the best in Tampa Bay ... and will try to quell my jealousy.

Through all the controlled chaos, one thing became clear: if I want to go where there are baseball jobs, I need to start taking Japanese lessons.

Michael Raines writes for indyindians.com and managed to fight the astounding temptation to use the phrase "Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto" on Monday. You can contact him at therainesdelay@gmail.com and follow him at twitter.com/Michael__Raines.

My love affair with Chipper Jones: One last hurrah

Working for the Indianapolis Indians, I spend every work day watching baseball or listening to baseball or writing about baseball or (usually) some combination of the above.

So that means the last thing I would want to do on my day off is go to a baseball game, right?

Wrong.

In just a handful of days off since the 2012 season began, I've been to three Major League Baseball games. The first was on the second day of the season, when my girlfriend Jessica and I went to Wrigley Field for Chicago Cubs-Washington Nationals, our fifth trip to the Friendly Confines -- and second year in a row we've been to Wrigley for the second game of the season. The second game was in late April on Chicago's southside, when I joined my former college roommate, Cory Bifoss, for a White Sox-Red Sox matchup, my first time at US Cellular Field, a ballpark which gets a bad wrap, in my opinion.

The most recent was Wednesday night in Cincinnati, when Jessica joined me for a Reds game against the Atlanta Braves, a team toward which I'm particularly partial. (If anyone knows who's in charge of such things, I'll go ahead and take that award for understatement of the year.)

If you know anything about me, it's obvious that I'm a lifelong, die-hard Braves fan -- fan being short for fanatic, which definitely fits in this scenario. I would watch a Braves game any chance I got, but this one was particularly important to me for one reason.

This guy:

Photo courtesy Jessica Boursier and her smart phone.

Braves third baseman Chipper Jones has been my favorite player ever since I started watching baseball, which encompasses the entirety of his spectacular career. A spectacular career that is rapidly coming to a close.

When Chipper announced his plans to retire following the 2012 season, I immediately grabbed an Indianapolis Indians schedule and an Atlanta Braves schedule to try to figure out when I could see Chipper play again. It worked out that the Braves were in the Queen City, an easy two-hour drive, on the same day the Indians were scheduled off.

In the days leading up to the game, Chipper was sidelined by a contusion on his left shin that he suffered when a hot-shot groundball got to him before he had a chance to get his glove in front of it. Rumors on Twitter were that he could possibly play by the game I was attending, but certainly not before then.

To my dismay, however, he wasn't in the starting lineup on Wednesday evening. I was still excited to be able to see the Braves play and to spend some time with Jessica, but I was (not-so) secretly hoping for a pinch-hit appearance by the great No. 10.

I got my wish in the top of the seventh inning, when Chipper pinch hit for pitcher Tommy Hanson with one on and one out in a tie game. The Reds, in a smart move, didn't give Chipper anything to hit and he drew a five-pitch walk. He was immediately replaced a pinch runner, his appearance short but oh-so-sweet.

As Chipper came off the field, a large conglomeration of Braves fans behind the third-base visitors dugout -- where I was sitting -- gave the 40-year-old slugger a standing ovation. No doubt there were several Reds fans in the fray, too. Chipper commands great respect from people who appreciate the game, regardless of team affiliation.

I, of course, was among those standing and cheering, clapping nearly as loudly as I likely would have if he had just hit a go-ahead home run. That man has been my baseball hero for my entire baseball life, and I would swear he looked right at me before he descended down the steps into the dugout -- but maybe that's just the fanboy in me. Since no one can prove me wrong, I'll believe what I want.

While I hope to be able to see Chipper play again this season, preferably in Atlanta or possibly in Pittsburgh for his final regular-season series, I'm not holding my breath. Instead, I'll be happy that I got the chance to see him again, period, the chance to see him draw a walk in a big situation, a chance to see him command the respect of an opposing team and the adoration of their fans.

I'm not looking forward to watching baseball without Chipper Jones, but I am looking forward to the day he gets his well-deserved call from Cooperstown, N.Y., and is enshrined in the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Even when Chipper is gone, I'll still root my heart out for my beloved Braves, and may even one day come to accept a new face manning the hot corner in Atlanta on a full-time basis.

But there will never be another Chipper Jones.

Michael Raines writes for indyindians.com and is going to cry like a baby when Chipper's retirement becomes official. You can contact him (or express your condolences) at therainesdelay@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/Michael__Raines. Also, ya know, there's that comment section down there. You know you want to...