Godzilla time

As exhibition games begin, Matsui still just warming up

TAMPA, Fla. -- Every moment of every day is showtime for Hideki Matsui. Every time he steps onto the field, every time he takes a swing, every time he wipes the sweat from his brow or shags a fly ball or walks -- yes, just walks, back and forth -- the New York Yankees’ Japanese superstar is on display.

Matsui walks into his first major league game on Thursday -- an exhibition game against Cincinnati -- and millions will be watching. The game will be televised live in Japan, where the man known as "Godzilla" is nothing short of a cultural icon. New Yorkers will take notice, too.

Is Matsui ready?

Well, for a spring training game, he's probably ready enough. But he's certainly not ready for the real thing. Not yet.

"For me, personally," Matsui said through his interpreter on Wednesday, "I'd like a little bit more time to prepare."

As exhibition games begin in Arizona and Florida, a lot of players from Surprise to Ft. Myers are thinking the same thing. But, really, that's what these games are for. This is the time to get ready. This is the time to find the swing, to get into shape, to get back into the playing-baseball-every-day mode.

How well players perform in these exhibition games is absolutely secondary to how well they get ready for the regular season.

"I'm not going to look into the results too seriously," Matsui admitted.

It's been especially difficult for Matsui, though, in his first major league camp, thousands of miles away from home, thrust into the Yankees' media mayhem. There are more Japanese media here covering Matsui -- more than 100 reporters, photographers and the like -- than there are New York reporters covering the rest of the Yankees.

Reggie Jackson told Hideki Matsui to just be himself at the plate. AP

Literally, every step he takes is recorded. When he walks into the dugout to get a bat, throngs of media members have to part to let him through. And then they have to do the same to let him out.

He went hitless in his first intrasquad game. He's had some trouble in batting practice. Reggie Jackson, the former Yankees slugger, is working with him daily.

"He wasn't quite himself today," Jackson reported Wednesday after a brief team workout.

For sure, Matsui has not shown yet what a lot of people expected of him. He has not launched homer after homer in batting practice, though the Yankees don't expect him to be quite the home run hitter here that he was in Japan. He has not wowed. He has been rather ordinary so far.

The Yankees, to their credit, are letting him take all the time he needs. Even George Steinbrenner, the famously impatient owner of the Yankees, is preaching patience with Matsui.

Jackson is working more on Matsui's mental state than anything else. He has not suggested a single change to Matsui's swing.

"He's telling me to just relax," Matsui said, "and swing the bat your own way."

The Yankees actually are pleased with how Matsui looks. Manager Joe Torre feared he'd find a big-swinging lefty slugger in Matsui. Instead, Matsui is controlled, with a compact swing that produces line drives rather than towering homers.

"He has a really manageable swing," Torre said, likening Matsui's stroke to that of former Yankees' first baseman Tino Martinez. "When I'm thinking left-hander, I'm [usually] thinking more of an uppercut swing."

The Yankees have about a month of exhibition games left before they open their season March 31 in Toronto. It's plenty of time for Matsui to get ready.

He'll be watched every step of the way.

Working with Mondy

One of Jackson's biggest projects in camp has been Raul Mondesi, one of the more enigmatic players in baseball. Mondesi is full of talent, five-tool talent, but he's never completely utilized it and, because of that, is constantly mentioned in trade rumors.

"Sometimes, you get into bad habits," Jackson said. "He has what we call a nice behind-the-ball swing, a nice inside move. We're just trying to get him to work more on that. If we can get him to co-sign that, we'll be all right."

This is Mondesi's first spring with the Yanks -- he came from Toronto in a mid-season trade last year -- giving him the first extended time to work with guys like Jackson and former Yankees first baseman Don Mattingly, another spring instructor. Mondesi has never driven in 100 runs, he's hit over .300 in a season only twice in his 10-year career and he is now on his third team.

This one, he hopes, will be different.

"They know what they're doing," Mondesi said of Jackson and Mattingly. "Sometimes, you do things and you don't know you're doing it. You get into bad habits. To have two guys like that point it out to you helps a lot."

Star power

You can't swing a Louisville slugger in a lot of spring training camps without knocking over a Hall of Famer, or someone close.

If it's not Reggie in Tampa, it's Mike Schmidt over in Clearwater, the spring home of the Philadelphia Phillies. Schmidt, like Jackson, is a special instructor this time of year. It's something special for the players, for sure.

"He was one of my idols growing up," said new Phillies first baseman Jim Thome. "Those guys … every moment and every minute that they talk to you, you just sit back and take it all in."

Camping out

One more Jackson note: After an article in the New York Times quoted him as saying he wanted a bigger role with the Yankees, Jackson called reporters together to do damage control. Evidently, some higher-ups in the organization were none too pleased. "In trying to be honest, I was too honest," Jackson said. "It sure got me in an uncomfortable spot." For the record, Jackson said, "I have no negative feelings toward the Yankees. If it wasn't for George, I wouldn't have a job in baseball." In the Times article, Jackson -- officially an adviser to owner Steinbrenner -- told Jack Curry that he wanted a more high-profile job, "not as a trophy; not as just fluff." Said Jackson on Wednesday: "In the article, it looked like I was insinuating, hinting, creating innuendo. That's not what I wanted to do. I got it too good." … The Phillies did something different this spring in pre-exhibition workouts. In between sessions on the different fields at their Clearwater complex, they didn't take breaks … The Phils no doubt welcome the move across town to Jack Russell Memorial Stadium, where they will play their home exhibition games. Much of their pre-exhibition workouts at the Carpenter Field complex were punctuated with the annoyingly loud construction on the other side of the fields, where the team's new spring training facilities, to open in 2004, are going up … Javy Lopez reported to the Atlanta Braves' camp at the Walt Disney World Wide World of Sports complex outside of Orlando at least 20 pounds lighter. Hitting coach Terry Pendleton is more impressed with the swing that Lopez has been retooling in the offseason … Ken Griffey Jr. may have been a little hurt by GM Jim Bowden's characterization of his trade from Seattle as a "flop," it is reported. Sheesh. By this time, we all know how easily Griffey is bruised. And by this time, Bowden sure ought to know that … Phillies manager Larry Bowa sees the key to how well his team does this season, at least early on, resting with how well the lower part of his rotation performs -- specifically, Brandon Duckworth and Brett Myers.

Spring Training Buzz runs every Monday and Thursday until Opening Day.

 

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