Yankees Outfielder Hideki Matsui Gets Married On The Down-Low.

I am a diehard NY Yankees fan. Having grown up in the Bronx, how could I be anything else? Anytime I see anything about the team or any of the players in the media, I immediately take notice. Take for example the reports that first surfaced in Japan, then in the U.S., that Yankees outfielder Hideki Matsui got hitched on the low earlier this week. The newly minted, Mrs. Matsui is a twenty-five year old Japanese woman, whom he described as a "civilian" who works for a good company. Alrighty. Not one member of the team attended the wedding, or even knew about it. Nobody knew he was dating, much less engaged.

Sidebar: my own Japanese woman, Ikue, and I have been arguing for nearly two years (virtually the entire time we've known each other) regarding Matsui. Ikue is from the same town as Matsui, and she tells me there have been rumors for years now that he was gay. Many of my gay Japanese friends are extremely secretive, and when I say extremely secretive what I'm really saying is C.I.A. covert, take-a-blood-oath, married to the mob style secretive about their lifestyle. The girlfriend says he's never been seen with a woman in Japan. Ever.

If Matsui is gay that may explain why he introduced his "wife" to the world as a drawing. seriously. Like, not even a photograph. He held up a sketch of her at a press conference. Now that's covert. On the other hand... the Japanese media has hounded the man beyond anything you could ever imagine.
Anyone who's has seen the amount of Japanese press that still, after five seasons with the Yankees, trail Matsui around can multiply that by at least three when he's on Japanese soil. That's insane. It might drive anyone to introduce their mate as a pencil drawing. Maybe he's just loosening up and having a laugh at everyone's expense. That would be a good as far as the upcoming season is concerned. Still it's kind of weird.

That is if you look at it from an American perspective. To an American, Matsui introducing his wife as a police sketch is actually normal from a Japanese perspective. Whenever a man or woman in public life marries someone who is not in public life they've introduced them the same way Matsui did to the U.S. media, as a drawing. He called  her a "civilian" but cause that is the literal English translation of 民間人, pronounced Minnkanjin, which means an ordinary person or a civilian. That's what all of us normal, working stiffs are called in Japan. To maintain a spouse's privacy, that is what is customarily done in Japan, somebody makes a sketch.

So Wednesday morning in Tampa he announced he was getting married, Thursday it was a done deal and Friday he was showing off his skills with lead. Then came word that he made a bet with Derek Jeter and Bobby Abreu, for an undisclosed amount of money, about whom amongst the three would get married first. It almost makes you wonder if getting in Jeter and Abreu's deep pockets was the motivation here. Hideki may have saw an opportunity to get Abreu & Jeter to cover some or all of his wedding expenses. Considering the pranks ball players play on teammates, this isn't an unreasonable assumption.

Anyway, I'm not naive, I realize, looking at the statistical percentage of gay:heterosexual males (approximately .07% if you're curious, err..., statistically curious, that is) in America, and the number of males in baseball to know, that statistically speaking, it is more likely that there are gay men in baseball than not. Seven percent would be more guys than got outted via the Mitchell Report. I have no idea what the numbers are for males in Japan. Given the fact that homosexuality has been around almost as long as sex and exists in every culture on the planet, I would guess it was the same percentage everywhere. So why not a Japanese baseball player, why not Matsui? It's not impossible although I would not believe so.
 
Not that it's a problem, in life or baseball. It doesn't change my love and admiration for the Japanese home run king or pinstripes. Frankly, I don't care about anything as long as the Yankees win ball games and, please merciful God, some more titles. As far as I am concerned, it is far more relevant that Matsui stays healthy this season than which side of the plate he bats from. I don't care what my girlfriend, the good people of Kanazawa or anywhere else in Japan has to say on the matter. Still, this news and the way it has unfolded is quite peculiar. At least from an American perspective.