Hideki "Godzilla" Matsui (born June 12, 1974) is a
Japanese Major League Baseball left fielder who
plays for the New York Yankees. He bats left-handed
and throws right-handed.
Matsui was born in Neagari, Ishikawa, Japan (later
merged into Nomi, Ishikawa). He started playing
baseball when he was in elementary school. According
to an interview on YES Network's "CenterStage,"
Matsui originally batted right-handed as a child.
However, when he started playing with his older
brother and his friends, Matsui was such a good
batter that his embarrassed brother insisted that he
bat left-handed or stop playing with them. Matsui
soon enough became an overpowering left-handed
batter, and stayed on that side of the plate from
then on. Matsui's stance is somewhat eccentric
because he does not move his bat.
Matsui participated in four National High School
Baseball Tournaments at Koshien Stadium, once in the
spring and three times in summer, during his high
school years. In 1992, he drew five consecutive
intentional walks in a game at Koshien and became a
nationwide topic in Japan at that time (partly
because intentionally walking batters was very
uncommon in Japanese amateur baseball at that time),
even though the strategy worked and his team lost.
Matsui graduated from Seiryo High School in
Kanazawa, Ishikawa.
