Japanese star would bring a world of attention

The New York Yankees have had to deal with lots of challenges over the years -- injured players, fired managers, slumping batting averages.

In the spring of 2003, the team was greeted by a new challenge: the arrival of Japanese superstar Hideki Matsui and the throngs of journalists who came to cover him, probably what the Red Sox will have in store if they sign Daisuke Matsuzaka.

"It was incredible," recalled Jason Zillo, associate director of media relations for the Yankees. He said the team hired Isao Hirooka as a media relations adviser to handle credential requests from the Japanese media. He came over with Matsui, was a journalist, and is fluent in Japanese and English.

"The first day of spring training, when we signed Matsui, we were in awe of how many media members were there to cover him. It was hundreds," Zillo said. "Of course, we had an idea, but we didn't imagine there would be 200 people to cover one person."

In spring training, Zillo said the Yankees designated an auxiliary box for Japanese media. The Japanese media then built a platform in right field to allow photographers to shoot Matsui at bat and in left field.

Zillo said the time difference in America affects Japanese journalists' deadlines, "so everything's kind of skewed, because they don't have the same deadlines."

"But at the same time, most of them are just covering Matsui; they don't care about the Yankees," Zillo said. "And he's unbelievably generous of his time with the media. He's known to take them out to lunch or dinner."

Zillo said the Yankees briefly discussed the situation with the Mariners, who signed Ichiro Suzuki in 2001.

"But New York is a different landscape than Seattle," Zillo said. "I mean, sure, the general baseline is the same as far as they had a Japanese player and we got one a few years later, but this is a New York market, and it's a lot different, so we sort of had to start from scratch."

Tim Hevly, spokesman for the Mariners, said the team's media relations department was not overwhelmed when Ichiro joined the team.

"We had Japanese players before Ichiro," Hevly said. "Our job is to work with the media, so it doesn't matter where they come from."

Hevly said the Japanese press corps has been shrinking ("I guess because there are more Japanese players in the majors"), although Zillo said the Japanese contingent at Yankees games has been "growing exponentially."

Sunday's NASCAR race is the season finale, and the finale for NBC, which is ending its six-year relationship with NASCAR. Starting next season, TNT will carry the Nextel Series through 2014. ESPN and ABC will also air some races.

"This is a bittersweet occasion," said Ken Shanzer, president of NBC Sports. "We regret the fact that this is the last race we're doing. But we're going to go out with enormous pride in having been a part of lifting NASCAR from the place in which it was six years ago to the place at which we leave it."

NBC (Ch. 7) begins prerace coverage of the Ford 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway at 2 p.m.

Bob Neumeier has landed on his feet again. The former WBZ-TV sports anchor and WEEI talk show host, who has been working for NBC's "Football Night in America" on Sundays, signed a three-year deal with NBC to cover a variety of sports. "It's everyone's ambition to work full time for a network," he said. "This is something I've longed for." . . . "Sports Machine," the syndicated highlight show that rose to popularity before ESPN dominated the airwaves, will go off the air after 23 years when host George Michael steps down in March . . . The Champ Car World Series will air on ESPN beginning in 2007, returning to the network that used to broadcast its races . . . On HBO's "Real Sports" Tuesday at 10 p.m., Bryant Gumbel interviews Floyd Landis, who Gumbel says "in the blink of an eye went from being the ultimate American sports hero to the ultimate outcast." Landis won the Tour de France in July, then two of his postrace samples revealed elevated testosterone levels.

Susan Bickelhaupt can be reached at bickelhaupt@globe.com. Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.