RED SOX TOKYO: It Is A Big Deal

So, I didn’t believe it's a big deal.

Still, just before game time I started watching the Japanese TV feed of the Boston Red Sox exhibition game against the Hanshin Tigers.

The scene is electric… the World Series Champs are in Tokyo... in baseball crazy Japan.

This is a big deal!

Daisuke Matsuzaka, a mega-star of Japanese baseball; a national hero – and a member of the reigning World Series Champion Red Sox – enjoyed the homecoming like a high school senior in May.

As I watch on the Internet at 11:39 p.m., March 21, here in Boston (12.39 p.m. March 22, in Tokyo), I realize again that bandwidth means we are a total global society... except the Japanese have far better Internet than we, in the US, will ever have.

My friend Hao, in Beijing, whom I took to a Red Sox game last July when he was over, is watching the same feed I am.

On top of that, it's pure Red Sox baseball. Apparently, the Sox do what the Sox do no matter the time zone… they go deep into counts… then batter the opposition’s pitching.

In the bottom of the first, the Tigers’ Yuya Andoh opened the frame by striking out Dustin Pedroia and Kevin Youklis.

Then – as the Grateful Dead’s record American Beauty played on my iPod's Bose sound dock – Andoh hung a slider to David Ortiz.

GuBYE – opposite field homer to left… just as Ripple started playing.

Manny Ramirez walked… Mike Lowell singled… JD Drew pounded at 2-2 hanging slider to left center for a 4-0 Sox lead in the first… Brokedown Place is right, for Andoh at this juncture.

A couple innings later I can tell you Andoh can pitch – great curve and change up – and the Hanshin Tigers can flat out pick it on defense.

Good game.

The Tiger's got into the Sox bullpen in the fourth, knocking Clay Buchholz out after three and two thirds innings.

If you’re here you know we’ve each gone global in our own way – tonight I am really lovin’ it… for all the ups and downs I still can’t believe how sweet this continues to be.

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