Boston.com partners with Japanese baseball site

Daisuke Matsuzaka

Boston.com has entered into a content-sharing agreement with a Japanese-language baseball site, enabling excerpts of Major League Baseball coverage from the Boston Globe, Boston.com, and the Boston Dirt Dogs (an irreverent blog for Boston Red Sox fans) to be translated into Japanese and posted online for readers worldwide.

The online relationship will begin immediately, with links connecting Boston.com and Go-RedSox.com.

The agreement was prompted by dramatically increased interest in the Red Sox within Japan after the team signed Japanese pitching star Daisuke Matsuzaka earlier this month. Hideki Okajima, a Japanese reliever, also joined the Red Sox roster this offseason.

Go-RedSox.com, which was created in 2003, is operated by Japanese journalist and Red Sox blogger Daigo Fujiwara and is an offshoot of Fujiwara's website on Major League Baseball's Japanese ballplayers, japaneseballplayer.com.

"This agreement is a creative way to bring our brand of quality coverage to a new audience who cares about Boston-area sports” said David Beard, editor of Boston.com.

In an additional enhancement of Red Sox coverage for Japanese sports fans, Globe columnist Gordon Edes will write a twice-monthly column for Sankei Daily Sports, Japan's leading sports publication.

Boston.com is the online affiliate of The Boston Globe.
(By Sacha Pfeiffer, Globe staff)