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Tempe, Arizona. Hideki Matsui wrapped his fingers around his lips, making a megaphone with his left hand. In a deep voice that needed no translation, he bellowed a sound he did not hear often in seven seasons with the Yankees: “Booooooo!”

Matsui was guessing how the crowd would react at Yankee Stadium next month if the Yankees bestow a championship ring on a visiting player. The Los Angeles Angels, Matsui’s new team, are the first visitors to the Bronx this season, with a three-game series starting on April 13.

“I don’t know what it’s going to be like,” Matsui said through his interpreter, Roger Kahlon, after an Angels practice at Tempe Diablo Stadium on Tuesday. “It’s kind of weird, because I’ll be wearing a different uniform.”

The Yankees have not announced plans for the ring ceremony, but if they recognize Matsui on the field, the fans will undoubtedly salute.

He ended his Yankees tenure by winning the Most Valuable Player award in the World Series, and he left without the usual acrimony of free agency.

Believing they had gotten the best from a player with surgically repaired knees — and discounting his .615 World Series average as a small sample size — the Yankees showed no desire to bring back the 35-year-old Matsui. He did not wait for them and did not complain. He took a one-year, $6 million deal from the Angels, and the Yankees made no effort to stop him.

“I made my decision to sign with the Angels before receiving any offer from the Yankees,” Matsui said. “Had I waited, I don’t know. They might have made an offer, they may not have.”

Many reporters who covered Matsui with the Yankees have also relocated. About 50 Japanese reporters are following the Angels this spring, compared with three daily beat writers from American news organizations.

The Angels won the World Series in 2002, but they are not used to such a singular focus on a player. The last time it happened, in 1982, it was another free-agent designated hitter from the Yankees.

“We haven’t had a player of that magnitude, with that type of media following, since Reggie Jackson,” said Tony Reagins, the Angels’ general manager.

Matsui is already comfortable in the Angels’ clubhouse. He played with Bobby Abreu and Juan Rivera on the Yankees and has known Torii Hunter since an all-star event in Japan in 2002.

“He’s got a really good sense of humor,” Hunter said. “He gets us warmed up, laughing, cracking up, sweating, and we go out on the field happy.”

Matsui left indelible memories in New York, but he said that he had made a clean break. “Once I made my decision, it was clear,” Matsui said. “I was ready to move on.”

Baseball

The New York Times