The Mysterious Marriage of Hideki Matsui

As a regular reader of this column would know, I am a Red Sox fan. Everything I read about the Yankees, no matter how hard I try, is viewed through this lens. That being said, I'm loving the coverage of Hideki Matsui's super-secret wedding. While I like to think of the Yankees as soulless automatons who only know how to function on the field, this light-hearted story of Matsui fixing a bet between Bobby Abreu and Derek Jeter cracked me up. (Matsui supposedly overheard Abreu and Jeter making a bet as to who would get married first. Knowing of his pending nuptials, Matsui said he wanted in. Needless to say, Matsui won.) It's a perfect fluffy Friday piece, even if when I first glanced at the front page of the Post I desperately wanted it to be a scandal.

The "scandalous" part of the story (and that's a term that I use really loosely) is that we know nothing of Matsui's young bride. He has released no photographs of her, nor has he told reporters her name. What we do know from a statement released by the Yankees is that she is 25, Japanese and, "had been formerly working in a reputable position at a highly respected company." The reasoning for keeping Mrs. Matsui under wraps is that the Japanese media would hound her constantly, as the slugger known as "Godzilla" was considered one of the country's most eligible bachelors. Instead of showing a picture of the lucky lady, Matsui held up two sketches--one of himself, one of the missus--at a press conference. So much for "sketchy" meaning "shady."