Valentine on Japanese perspective

Bobby Valentine knows the Japanese baseball community better than most. For the past three years, the former New York Mets and Texas Rangers manager from Stamford has been running the Chiba Lotte Marines in Japan's Pacific League.

A dozen years after Hideo Nomo began the steady stream of Japanese stars leaving their homeland for the major leagues, Valentine said Wednesday that Japanese fans now view the defections as much with cynicism as wonder.

"It's not like there's not interest (in Matsuzaka coming to Boston), it just isn't one that excites the heart of every Japanese citizen," Valentine said. "Many of them were very upset about it. Many people feel that it's kind of an adversarial situation, with the best players being stolen away, to destroy the leagues. The last thing in the world they want to do is see these leagues destroyed."

"(Matsuzaka) was just another one jumping the ship. That's what most of the Japanese fans felt. Obviously, they wanted him to go to a good team. They want him to be very successful. I'm hoping, as well as the Japanese fans, that he can do what he's capable of doing."

Matsuzaka is one of four Japanese players who will be part of the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry this season, joining pitcher Hideki Okajima with the Red Sox, opposing outfielder Hideki Matsui and pitcher Kei Igawa.

But Valentine said the rivalry has not yet translated overseas, even though the New York Yankees are the dominant major league presence in Japan.

"There's no excitement for the rivalry, the Red Sox and Yankees," Valentine said. "Japan has its own baseball community. It's 150 million people who love baseball. That they have some of their best baseball players playing in America gives them great pride. They root for the players."

Valentine, who will be returning shortly to Japan to begin the season, spoke at a breakfast seminar at UConn-Stamford Wednesday morning.

Valentine, 56, is in his second stint with Chiba Lotte, having managed them in 1995, then returning in 2004 and leading the Marines to the 2005 championship, becoming the first foreign-born manager to win the Japan Series.

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