Perspectives on Sox? NESN adds two more
The NESN stable of reporters keeps growing. The network announced this week the addition of two more -- Ken Macha, who has extensive baseball knowledge, and Naoko Funayama , who has extensive Japanese knowledge.
Both of which are bound to boost NESN's Red Sox coverage.
Macha, who managed the Oakland A's as well as the Pawtucket Red Sox, after a major league playing career with three teams, also spent four years playing in Japan, although he said he came away speaking only "survival Japanese." He will be part of the rotating cast (Jim Rice, Dennis Eckersley, and Dave McCarty are the others) on the pre- and postgame Red Sox shows. Macha's first appearance will be May 4 before the Sox game at Minnesota.
Funayama, who is a native of Japan, will be a freelance feature reporter for NESN while she keeps her full-time job as sports reporter at WMUR-TV in Manchester, N.H. She will cover Daisuke Matsuzaka, among other subjects. She got some notice last fall when Matsuzaka was introduced to the media. When a translator was struggling to explain something Matsuzaka said, Funayama boldly stepped up and translated, much to the relief of the press corps. She also caught the eye of NESN executives, said vice president of programming and executive producer Joel Feld.
"That was definitely her big break," he said.
Funayama reported from Fenway for the first time last Wednesday, and while she didn't interview Matsuzaka, she did talk to Ichiro Suzuki of the Seattle Mariners. She will work tonight's game against the Yankees.
Macha played in Japan from 1982-86, but doesn't expect that to help him much with Matsuzaka, since he only learned enough utilitarian Japanese to tell a cab driver where to turn or order food in a restaurant.
Macha thinks his baseball skills will carry him in his new job.
He's been in front of a camera before, but usually in the role of manager, not analyst. He managed the A's from 2003-06.
"The last eight years I've been either a coach or a manager in the American League, so I've got a pretty good idea of what players can do and can't do, what pitchers' strengths and weaknesses are, how managers handle the game."
Macha, who will work three one-week stints in Boston, said he has spent the spring watching his daughter's college softball team play.
"This is my first year out of baseball in 35 years," he said. "I think I've got a little bit of a right to relax."
Mayock, who played at Boston College from 1977-80, had an injury-riddled, two-year stint with the New York Giants before trying commercial real estate.
"I still wanted to do that football thing," he said. So he spent the next 10 years working as an analyst for college football games. "I worked my way up to do games for ABC and ESPN, and when the NFL Network started [in November 2003], I auditioned."
That's when not having a name like Ditka or Theismann kicked in.
"They offered me a job as a college draft guy, and I kind of argued and said I'm as good as those other guys [who auditioned], why can't I be an NFL analyst?
"And it goes back to the whole name recognition," he said. "I was told, 'Mike, this is job security for you. Every year a big-name coach or a player comes along, and they're going to take your job first. But nobody's looking to get into the personnel side.' And he was right."
Now Mayock, who watches the NFL combine and rates the players and team needs, is considered a draft guru on the NFL Network, which will carry the draft live next weekend.
Susan Bickelhaupt can be reached at bickelhaupt@globe.com. 