Tirico Suave

While thumbing through the most recent issue of Time Asia, I stumbled upon an article about Hideki Matsui. Most of it was your standard profile piece but this paragraph caught my eye:

“Indeed, his only eccentricity, if it can be called that, is his extensive private library of adult videos. His refreshing ability to laugh self-deprecatingly about his porno collection, reporters say, is one reason why fans and even nonfans have taken to him so much. Says former reporter Isao Hirooka: “Hideki just wants to be like ordinary people.”

The author drops that pearl (slight pun intended), but quickly reverts back to baseball, and as you could imagine, I was vastly disappointed. Until the author touched on it again, two paragraphs later:

‘And, of course, he likes to watch his much vaunted porno collection, tapes that he often trades with Japanese reporters. As one Japanese journalist put it, describing Matsui’s affinity for such unique Japanese cultural institutions like the no-panties shabu-shabu in Japan, “Matsui is a horny guy. All of us are horny, more or less. But Matsui doesn’t attempt to hide the fact.’ Yet another win for the Japanese Everyman.”

I’m not sure how Matsui’s addiction to porn somehow translates into a victory for the Japanese everyman, but I’ll just add that to the forever expanding pile of things that mystify me about Asian culture. And as for trading porn with reporters? That’s brilliant. Why didn’t Barry Bonds publicist ever think of this? He could walk around attached to an HGH IV-drip and they’d still put him in the Hall of Fame on the first ballot. They might even push to have the five-year waiting period immediately waived.