The Boston Red Sox reached a preliminary agreement with Japanese ace Daisuke Matsuzaka on a US$52 million, six-year contract on Wednesday.
After bidding US$51.11 million just for the right to negotiate with Matsuzaka, the Red Sox completed the most expensive cultural exchange in Major League Baseball history within hours of his landing in Boston.
"Theo and I were still negotiating terms when we arrived," agent Scott Boras said after a long day of talks with general manager Theo Epstein, "We finalized the deal when he arrived in Boston."
PHOTO: AP
The Red Sox had planned to hold a news conference to announce the deal yesterday, a person familiar with the talks said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Matsuzaka gets a US$2 million signing bonus, US$6 million next year, US$8 million in each of the following three seasons and US$10 million in each of the final two years.
The Red Sox won the bidding for Matsuzaka's rights last month, promising to pay the Seibu Lions US$51.11 million if they let him leave for the major leagues. But they had just 30 days -- until midnight yesterday -- to negotiate a contract with Boras or the right-hander would return to Japan and Boston would keep its money.
When talks stalled, the Red Sox brass flew uninvited to Boras' turf in Southern California on Monday to meet with him in person. They said they had to leave on Wednesday, with or without an agreement; Boras has said Matsuzaka would not go to Boston for a physical unless the sides had the makings of a deal.
Boras said the final negotiating session began at about 8:30am and within 90 minutes he was confident there would be an agreement.
"Daisuke really had three choices," Boras said. "He could sign now. He could wait another year or he could wait two years and become a free agent. He had to determine how much money he was willing to give up now."
When Red Sox owner John Henry's plane took off -- with Matsuzaka aboard -- from California, Boston radio stations and Web sites tracked its path as religiously as they had been counting down the minutes to the deadline.
Red Sox chairman Tom Werner, president Larry Lucchino and Epstein were seen coming off the plane with Matsuzaka and Boras.
There were several dozen fans to greet him and about the same number of reporters, many of them Japanese. A radio station distributed signs that pictured two dice and a K -- Matsuzaka's first name is pronounced "Dice-K."
Matsuzaka's agreement includes US$8 million in escalators based on awards that would bring the total to US$60 million over six years and also includes award bonuses. Boras said the deal includes travel from Japan for the player and his family, plus provisions for a trainer, a masseuse, an interpreter, an assistant and housing for spring training and the regular season.
If there had not been a deal, Matsuzaka's rights would have remained with the Lions and he could not have been offered to major league teams again until next November; he is not eligible to become a free agent in Japan until after the 2008 season.
Matsuzaka has a 108-60 record in Japan with a 2.95 ERA and 1,355 strikeouts in 204 games.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier