NEW YORK -- The Boston Red Sox will open their World Series title defense in Tokyo.
Following months of negotiations, the Red Sox agreed to a two-game series against the Oakland Athletics in Japan on March 25-26, and the commissioner's office announced the trip early Wednesday.
With Daisuke Matsuzaka and Hideki Okajima, the Red Sox figure to be an attractive draw for the games at the Tokyo Dome. The Red Sox and A's also will play exhibition games on March 23-24 against Japanese teams.
However, Matsuzaka might miss the season opener at the Tokyo Dome. The Japanese pitcher's wife is expecting their second baby around the time of the March 25-opener against the Oakland Athletics, which was announced Wednesday morning. Red Sox president Larry Lucchino said the team and the commissioner's office were aware of the potential conflict.
"We're hopeful that their second child will be born at such a time to allow him to participate," Lucchino said in a conference call. "We are hopeful, but we do recognize that he has an important obligation with respect to the birth of that child."
Matsuzaka's first child was born in Japan. It's not clear whether the Matsuzakas plan to deliver in Japan or the United States this time.
After the trip, the teams return to the United States and open the rest of their regular-season schedules with a two-game series at Oakland on April 1-2. That originally was to be a four-game set.
Oakland will be the home team for the games in Japan.
"I'm all for a 13-hour flight around the world to...," Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling said this morning sarcastically in an interview on Boston sports radio station WEEI. "You know what, it's one of those things, we had a meeting last week, and the players spoke, and most of the players... it wasn't that we didn't want to go, it's that we've heard enough to know, and I've been over there on tours to know that it does have an impact on the season. They're trying to build in safeguards around it, and if they can do that, from a travel standpoint, it's a great idea.
“I'm not going to pitch over there, so I'm going to have fun but this is definitely going to present a challenge and the one thing I know is this organization will do everything it can to make sure we're rested and ready to go when it kicks off for real, but this is a little different gig.
“And I know they're counting on [Daisuke Matsuzaka] and [Hideki] Okajima, and I know Dice-K's wife is expected to have a baby around that time and if that happens, I would imagine that we'd go to Japan without the most famous Japanese name on the planet with us."
As part of the trip, both the Red Sox and A's will also compete against Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) teams in day/night doubleheaders scheduled for March 22 and 23.
The Japan visit is one of two Asian trips Major League Baseball hopes to make next year. Talks have been under way for months to have the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres play exhibition games in Beijing, most likely on March 14-15, at the ballpark to be used for the 2008 Olympics. That would be Major League Baseball's first trip to China.
If the Beijing games take place, the Dodgers likely would then travel to Arizona for most of their remaining spring training games. Next spring is their last at Vero Beach, Fla., where they first trained in 1949. They switch their training base in 2009 to Glendale, Ariz.
Boston and Oakland will be the third set of teams to open the regular season at the Tokyo Dome, following the New York Mets and Chicago Cubs (2000), and the New York Yankees and Tampa Bay Devil Rays (2004). A scheduled 2003 series between Oakland and Seattle at the Tokyo Dome was canceled because of the threat of war in Iraq.
"Opening our regular season in Japan for the third time is another example of Major League Baseball's commitment to continue the global growth of the game," commissioner Bud Selig said in a statement.
Boston.com contributed to this report.
