In media blitz, he'll be covered

For Kazufumi Kurahashi , it will be all D-Mat all the time. Or all Dice-K all the time. Actually, he finds these newly created Daisuke Matsuzaka nicknames rather inadequate.

"The Monster, we call him," said Kurahashi, one of nearly 50 Japanese reporters camped out at Fenway Park yesterday awaiting the arrival of the latest Red Sox savior.

Just days ago, Kurahashi learned he would be moving to Boston as the Matsuzaka beat reporter for the Tokyo-based Hochi Shimbun newspaper. "I will be writing a story every day. Even if there is no news."

Matsuzaka's arrival was front-page, broadcast-leading news throughout Japan. Japanese reporters lined Yawkey Way and Lansdowne Street, skittering and scampering every time a tinted-window sport utility vehicle drove by that might contain a certain pitcher.

The signing of the Japanese ace promises to add a new element to Boston's famously combative and provincial sports culture: a large contingent of Japanese reporters who will beam back news of every Matsuzaka game, rumor, and quip in their own language and colorful style.

They elbowed aside dozens of American reporters in a Fenway suite yesterday to witness Matsuzaka's formal introduction to Red Sox Nation. The change was almost immediately apparent. The team served Japanese food in the lounge and referred to him as "Matsuzaka-san."

"There is the Green Monster here and you are The Monster in Japan. How do you feel about this?" was the first question from a Japanese reporter to Matsuzaka. He was fine with it.

Japanese reporters interviewed yesterday said Matsuzaka was actually slightly less popular in Japan than two other famous Japanese imports to the major leagues -- Seattle's Ichiro Suzuki and the Yankees' Hideki Matsui -- because he played for a small-market team, the Seibu Lions.

But Suzuki and Matsui are old news. Now, The Monster is the story. And Japanese fans, said the reporters, would eat it up.

"This is the top level of baseball. Japanese fans want to see our best pitcher be challenged at the top level," said Sinji Fukuda , a director with the Nippon Television Network .

Some of the reporters were surprised to find that the Boston media was as gaga over Matsuzaka as they were. But the Japanese reporters in town from New York informed their colleagues that baseball in Boston is serious business.

"I was surprised that he had a nickname in the US before he was even signed," said Ai Itsumi, a Nippon TV reporter. "It's crazy here. That's what I'm worried about. The fans are crazy."

After just a few days in Boston, Kurahashi already has a sense of the madness. He said he assumes he will be using the word sanshin regularly. That means strikeout. Then there is kachi, which is win. But make? Given the intensity of the few Sox fans he has interviewed, he hopes not to use that word often.

"It means lose," said Kurahashi, who plans soon to rent a house in the Boston area. "If he doesn't succeed, he will be booed. He will be booed a lot."

His colleague Uasuko Yanagita, who is Hochi Shimbum's Matsui beat writer and was in town yesterday helping Kurahashi out, said that though Japanese fans were excited for Matsuzaka's US debut, there was some sadness.

"They like to be proud of him. But they don't want to lose him," she said. "They worry what will happen to Japanese baseball. Will it be boring?"

But there will be at least one consolation: when Matsuzaka takes the mound against Matsui and the Yankees. The Monster versus Godzilla.

"They will not root for one or the other. They will just sit back and enjoy it," said Yanagita. "That is the best baseball."

Raja Mishra can be reached at rmishra@globe.com.