Konnichiha

As the Red Sox hang in hotels and a stadium that looks suspiciously like someone transported the Metrodome to Japan, WMYM thought it would be a good time to shift focus to commercialism. Yes, it's a jump, but if you can't toggle between baseball and blatant commercialism in Japan, home of shopping meccas like Shibuya, Shinjuku and Ikebukero, then where can you?


It's also not much of a jump when you think about it. This trip to Tokyo - which makes an ornerus season-opening road trip downright exhausting - is being down all but openly for marketing initiatives. Bringing the Red Sox - and perhaps more importantly, bringing Daisuke Matsuzaka and Hideki Okajima - ensures that MLB will be able to generate expanding cash flows in the world's most spendhappy economy. It also ensures that the Red Sox will expand their brand in the country, perhaps even eclipsing the top-of-mantle status of the Yankees' interlocking NY among recognizable U.S. sports iconography.

So, whether anyone admits or not, that's why the Red Sox and A's are there. But just as there's a steep early-season potential pitfall from flying to Japan to start a campaign, there's also the lucrative upside that gives Boston more cash and, ergo, more payroll flexibility for Theo Epstein and co. to tinker with.

That's more and more important as the current ownership cabal slowly exhausts other sources of alternative funding. In case you missed this piece of news a couple weeks ago (major props to Dan Lamothe over at Red Sox Monster for that bit of inspiration), Coca Cola came through with even more funding for a "family priced" section of above outfield seating ... at the cost of the gaudy turned eerily classic Coke bottles.

But that's just the issue, isn't it? When does the constant merchandising become classic? The outrage when San Francisco's Pac-Bell Park became AT&T Park was legitimate - and it should have been. There's no outrage over the less-than-gracious dumping of the Coke bottles, but perhaps there will be if the Ninety-Nine goes under from all the horrendous on-air advertising they do, resulting in the lucky horseshoe logos plastered on green all over being replaced by Bud Light splatterings. Those loyal Sam Adams drinkers would be mighty pissed.

Then again, could they fault the front office for trying to find more money? How else can payroll keep expanding in a stadium that, while running out of ways to augment capacity, simultaneously demands to put out a contending team AND maintain the historical heritage of a team, city and - in all reasonable estimation - the game of baseball as a whole?

That's simple. It can't. Which is exactly why complaining about big revenue builders like, say, a season-opening trip to Tokyo, are a bit hypocritical of Red Sox fans.

Now, if only that would keep us - WMYM included - from bitching about it for the next two weeks...

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