•    HOME   
•    NEWS   
•    BUSINESS   
•    INTERNATIONAL   
•    TECH   
•    SPORTS   
•    LIFE & TIMES   
•    OPINION   
•    MY JAKARTA   
•    BLOGS   

Port St. Lucie, Florida . The Japanese television network J Sports is planning a broadcast that features Hideki Matsui, the Japanese star, and Hisanori Takahashi, a left-handed pitcher for the Mets.

In the scheduled spot, Matsui will send a video message from Angels training camp in Arizona to Takahashi at Mets camp in Florida. Takahashi is then supposed to respond.

Mets fans unfamiliar with Takahashi may wonder why Matsui, hero of the 2009 World Series for the Yankees, is doing a spot with a little-known (in the United States) pitcher who is on a minor league contract and who, theoretically, may not make the team.

But Takahashi’s relative obscurity in this country in no way reflects his standing in Japan, where he is among the biggest pitching stars.

“Actually, he is pretty popular,” Matsui said through an interpreter at Angels camp. “He was drafted as a No. 1 pick.”

As the long-serving starter for the Japan Series champs, the Tokyo Yomiuri Giants, Takahashi has built a large following in Japan after being taken No. 1 in 1999, and if he continues to pitch the way he did in his Grapefruit League debut on Sunday, he will gain status in New York, too.

Takahashi was scheduled to pitch again on Friday, but the game was rained out. He was switched to Saturday afternoon’s game against the Tigers, where he has another chance to dazzle the Mets decision makers with his expert command of all his various pitches.

But another reason for the J Sports spot is that Takahashi and Matsui are former teammates with the Giants and are friends.

“I know him pretty well, he was my teammate for three years with the Giants,” Matsui said. “I spent a fair amount of time with him on the field. While I was with the Yankees, I went back to Japan during the off-season and I had dinner with him.”

Takahashi’s version is that they are friendly, but have not had the opportunity to spend much time together since Matsui left in 2003 to carve out a successful career in the United States.

When asked how often they spoke on the phone, Takahashi said they almost never did. When asked how many times they had dinner together during the off-season, he said it was mostly impossible because of their busy schedules.

But Takahashi has a sense of humor, and can often be cagey. After repeatedly answering questions about his relationship with Matsui by saying that he had not spoken with Matsui on the phone, that they had not had lunches or dinners together in the off-season and that they never ate together during their three years with the Giants, he shrugged at his skeptical questioner.

“Who is this Hideki Matsui?” he said, laughing.

At the end of the interview he said something to his interpreter, who said Takahashi wanted to say something else. It sounded as if he was about to make a declaration about his stature as a pitcher in Japan, but it was something else.

“He wants you to know,” the interpreter said, “that your fly is down.”

But Takahashi not only has a sense of humor, he also has supreme self-confidence and a dash of daring.

As an accomplished pitcher in Japan, Takahashi could have stayed there and made more money and had more security. He earned $2 million last year and had a chance at a three-year contract with the Giants with $3 million in the first season and the next two to be negotiated later.

Instead, he announced that he was leaving to pitch in the United States before he knew if any teams wanted him.

On Jan. 31, when his former teammates with the Giants reported to spring training, Takahashi packed his suitcases and flew to Arizona, without a team to report to and with little hope of getting a guaranteed major league contract

“Just find me a park where I can throw,” he told his agent, Anthony Na. “It doesn’t matter what color I will be wearing, I will be ready.”

A week before camps opened, Takahashi signed a nonguaranteed minor league deal with the Mets worth less than $1 million. He was promised nothing, except a chance to pitch out of the bullpen or as the fifth starter. When spring training began, manager Jerry Manuel never mentioned Takahashi as a candidate.

But after his first outing, when he threw three shutout innings, he essentially introduced himself as a candidate for the fifth starter’s role.

He still has a lot of work to do to make the team. Whatever security he could have had in Japan has been left behind as Takahashi tries to do with the Mets what his former teammate and friend did with the Yankees.

“Never look back,” he said.

 

The New York Times