Hideki Matsui is ready to begin hitting with two hands on the bat and fielding batted balls–the next steps in his return to the New York Yankees and in restoring order to how American baseball is consumed in Japan.
Matsui said through an interpreter last week that not being able to play was boring. One man’s boredom is an entire nation’s soap opera. The ripple effects of Matsui’s injury, a broken left wrist suffered May 11, have reached Japan, where fans were accustomed to frequent coverage of Matsui’s exploits with the Yankees. With Matsui going through rehabilitation, however, fewer Yankees games are being broadcast in Japan, and the ones that are televised have generated much lower ratings.
Matsui’s wrist buckled on the outfield grass when he tried to catch a fly ball at Yankee Stadium during the first inning against the Boston Red Sox. After he was placed on the disabled list, NHK, the network that broadcasts most Major League Baseball games in Japan, discontinued its Yankees coverage.
“Then some viewers started to make phone calls to NHK,” said Kenji Ebe, a vice president for the network. “Even without Matsui, they wanted to see the Yankees. So we started to change our coverage again.”
The coverage, however, did not return to its previous level. Before the injury, 75 percent of the Yankees’ 32 games were broadcast by the network. From May 11 to the All-Star Game break, only 32 percent of the Yankees’ 54 games were broadcast by NHK.
The ratings in Japan for Yankees games since Matsui’s injury have dropped by as much as 25 percent, Ebe said. A decline was expected because NHK carried the monthlong World Cup, which began June 9, on one of its five channels. To make room, the network trimmed its MLB coverage.
Upon the conclusion of the World Cup, on July 9, NHK returned to broadcasting its usual number of major-league games, but now other teams are featured more prominently. NHK has broadcast games involving other Japanese position players, like second baseman Tadahito Iguchi of the White Sox and outfielder So Taguchi of the St. Louis Cardinals.
“I think it’s certainly a positive,” Paul Archey, Major League Baseball’s senior vice president for international business operations, said of the current lineup of televised games.
“It does give a chance for fans in Japan to get to see more White Sox and Cardinals games, maybe Mariners games, get to know players from other teams.”
Iguchi blushed when it was suggested to him that he may have become more prominent at Matsui’s expense.
“His absence is making a lot of people in Japan sad,” Iguchi said through an interpreter. “I hope he gets better soon.”
