DICE-K, THE MONSTER, GODZUKI or whatever ya call him is coming to America. The baby-faced, somewhat pampered $100 million man (plus perks) isn't exactly Jesus, but he'll be wearing #18, and he brings passion for the hometown team back from the dead as far as the faithful are concerned. Gordon Edes covers the drama in this play-by-play of hardball negotiations (essential reading), which at one point bordered on the absurd (police escort for a physical?).

But if the fear is that Japan's national treasure won't relocate so easily to his new nation (marketing ick-fest), especially amid the outsized expectations for a 26-year-old who's never pitched in the Majors before, we have this tidbit to give us hope that this kid is ready for the madness that is the American League East, even if J.D. Drew is not:

Asked about his expectations for next season, according to Sankei Sport [Matsuzaka] said: "I think getting a good start on the season will be a key to succeed. At this time, I feel Boston fans are welcoming to me, but I heard their character.

"When I'm not playing well, I am sure to have a tough time in Boston. I am going to do my best in order to make Boston fans be more excited."

Matsuzaka spoke with his new catcher, Jason Varitek, in a conference call the day after signing, Boras said.

When the agent visited in Japan this summer, Matsuzaka's wife asked for a favor. "She wanted to know if I could get Daisuke the jersey of his favorite player," Boras said. "I thought it might be Ichiro, or [Hideki] Matsui. No – it was Jason Varitek."

Right on, my yellow brother. Right on.

TRADING MANNY TO BOSTON is the best idea ever. This exchange, buried in The Sports Guy's mailbag:

Q: The Sox should just tell Manny he got traded to Boston. He won't know the difference.

- Mike H, Noxen, N.H.

SG: I love this idea. They could go all out with this: Call him up, tell him he's been traded to Boston, have him pack up all of his stuff, fly him in circles in the team jet for five hours, then drop him off in Cambridge and tell him he's on the West Coast. He might fall for it. By the time the season starts, it will be too late for him to complain. I really think this could work.

I HATE THE VIRTUAL WAITING ROOM, the inevitable and interminable purgatory that is a condition of every Red Sox online ticket sale. Every December, the Red Sox make tickets available for a handful of next season's games (ostensibly just in time for holiday gift giving). So every December, I spend a day sitting in front of the computer, living my life in-between 30-second automated browser refreshes that read:

Welcome to the Boston Red Sox Virtual Waiting Room!

PLEASE BE ADVISED THAT PATRONS ARE SELECTED FROM THIS VIRTUAL WAITING ROOM ON A RANDOM BASIS FOR THE OPPORTUNITY TO PURCHASE TICKETS.

We are experiencing very high demand. As a result, all requests for seats cannot be served simultaneously. Please be patient, and your browser will be refreshed in: [30 . . . 29 . . . 28 . . . 27 . . . 26 . . . seconds]

When we refresh your browser, we will determine your status in the waiting room and, if appropriate, give you an opportunity to request seats. DO NOT REFRESH THIS WINDOW. We appreciate your patience.

Tremendous interest for Boston Red Sox tickets may produce lengthy wait times. While waiting, please be sure to read the following important information and check for general availability status below. . . .

Which is what I'm doing right now. And what I've been doing since 10:00am this morning. Waiting. And then, every 30 seconds, checking to see if my wait's over. And then I go back to waiting. And checking. And waiting. Every 30 seconds the message in the browser window refreshes, revealing the same message that was displayed during the previous 30 seconds.

But at the end of one of these half-minute nuggets, the Virtual Waiting Room will suddenly disappear, and I'll immediately find myself staring at a seating chart, plunged into an intense state of panic as I try to assess which seats are left to which games against which teams and on which days. The system allows you mere minutes to secure all your tickets before your time's up, and you can practically feel the good seats disappearing right in front of your eyes. It's the same feeling I imagined as a kid winning one of those 60-second shopping sprees at Toys 'R' Us — except now there's a $4 processing fee for each toy I grab and there are a hundred thousand other kids competing for the best toys right alongside me.

Keep in mind, we're talking about games in April and May, so it's already an act of faith to commit in advance the hundreds of dollars that the eight ticket per person limit represents. Yet the worst part isn't that all of this investment is based on a system that feels so fragile — linger too long or click the wrong button in haste and risk banishment back into the Virtual Waiting Room. And the worst part isn't that a lot of the weird purchasing restrictions and protocols are designed to discourage scalpers — and in fact do absolutely nothing to discourage scalpers — but instead make the process extra tricky for the rest of us. The worst part isn't even that you get to do this twice a year, once today and then some other day when the tickets for the rest of the season become available. The worst part is that, all things considered, this is probably as good a system for online ticket buying as we can expect. Go Sox.

IF MATSUI IS GODZILLA, then shouldn't Daisuke be Godzuki? According to the Wikipedia entry on Hanna-Barbera's "The Godzilla Power Hour":

Also included in the series was a cute diminutive Godzilla counterpart, Godzooky, who could summon the monster himself if necessary.

Makes sense to me, allowing that the monster Daisuke summons is the powerful and possibly mythical gyroball (not his pinstriped brethren, Matsui-san).

Anyway, regardless of whether it's necessary to call Daisuke Matsuzaka anything but Daisuke Matsuzaka, or whether we should be wary of reinforcing cartoonish cultural stereotypes, I say Godzuki as a nickname is still way better than "Dice-K". Where did the Globe come up with that? It's not remotely fun to say, nor does it convey the awesome might of a strange radioactive monster from a foreign land, which if nothing else, is at least intimidating. Dice K sounds like a second rate hip-hop artist, if you ask me.

UPDATE: Apparently, Daisuke is pronounced "Dice-K," so, uh, that's where the Globe came up with the nickname – it's his actual name (sorta). But it's still kinda lame. I much prefer the one he threw out there during his press conference:

His Translator: His nickname is the Monster in Japan. Now he’ll become the Red Monster. . . . [he's] very happy and excited to be on the Boston Red Sox.

17TH-CENTURY REALISM MEETS 20TH-CENTURY TELEVISION in "Joseph's Bloody Coat Brought to Jacob" (1630) by Diego Velázquez, now appearing in a really good exhibit at The National Gallery in London. The painting depicts Joseph's jealous brothers cleverly (and guiltily) offering their father false evidence of his favored son's death. Only Jacob's canine companion, straight out of a scene from Lassie, seems to know what the real deal is. One can almost hear the spaniel yapping, "Ruff! Something smells suspicious! Ruff! Ruff!" Apparently, even the masters will indulge in melodramatic plot devices from time to time.