Nice Day and NYPD Blue

Realistically, it's hard to dig it all too happily...Echo and the Bunnymen....Heaven Up Here...a gem of a line

Well. After losing the first draft of this due to Windows shutting down spontaneously, I rewrite.

Why do people like Daisuke Matsuzaka? Why is it so easy to get 'up' for the games? Read on..

Kei Igawa is pretty good. The Yankess now have 2/5 definite tough days in the rotations. As far as Daisuke Matsuzaka is concerned, think if Curt Schilling and Tom Glavine were pitching in Japan; there is no way one wouldn't call that rivalry an even proposition; both are so good. Same for Igawa and Matsuzaka.

Igawa is "Well + River". As Japan has so much rain and as both words are extremely simple, I am thinking that it means "A really nice day." "Kei" is "a celebration", so this name is sort of like a celebration that's good enough to top off a really nice day. Like apres ski or after a day at the beach. It's not "Matsuzaka Daisuke" or "Nomo Hideo"; it's more like "Don Ho" or "Fun Bobby". Maybe something like "Kennedy", as opposed to "Eastwood".

I have been reading about the Sawamura Award, which is the Cy Young Award of Japan. It's a good name for the award. "Sawa" is "water + train station" and "mura" is "village". So, I didn't become an investment banker, because the train didn't stop near my village or town. Instead I became a major league pitcher. The same thing applies in reverse to New England college hockey, players just get whisked off to Wall Street because it's right there, while more players in Minnesota and North Dakota go on to the NHL. Statistically it should be a similar number given the parity in the Frozen Four between the ECAC and the Big 10 et cetera. But it's not.

Daisuke is a good word, it sounds like "Dai" meaning "very" and "suki" meaning "to like" , it's pronounced of course with a near-silent "u", it sounds like the English "Ski". Do you like hamburgers? Daisuke! (I love them) ... Do you like Hawaii? Hawaii daisuke! (I love Hawaii.)

Two "u"'s (uu or u with the line over it) is a solid "u" sound, like "school"; one "u" is almost silent, like "Daisuke".

Red Sox ski? Red Sox Daiski!!

Matsuzaka is a cool name. Pine tree = Matsu and "steep grade" = zaka. I was walking once near the Emperor's Place in Tokyo, kind of a boring walk n the way to somewhere else, like walking past a state house, and the gradient of the slope leading down from the sidewalk was like 50 meters @ 80 degrees - it was unbelievably steep, like nothing I've ever seen here, like a warning not to walk around there, especially late at night on beer.

I also think of civil engineering when I read the "zaka" word, like all the grades created along the sides of the interstates covered with trees or landscaping. Pine trees are the symbol of truth, and I think "Pine trees don't care if it is steep or not" is the answer, like "If you have a grip on the facts, the social trends, the people involved, then you can pretty much be a good cop or trial lawyer along the lines of NYPD Blue, where everything is so complicated; almost every show has a case like this.

Sifowicz: So your mom's boyfriend called you a punk and stole your XBox?

Suspect: Twice. You don't understand...I'm in basketball and science fair, I can't be there watching my stuff all the time...

Sifowicz: No, I talked to your mom about her friend, she confided, he was bothering her too, talking about going to the Poconos with a bag of crack he found,...

Suspect: [cringe]

Sifowicz: Don't cry, I think I can work something out with the DA.

MATSUZAKA!


I should stop here, but there's more.

Kaz Matsui and Hideki Matsui have the "Pine tree of truth" added to "the well" (same as the "I" of Igawa); "the well" is just a tic-tac-toe, so "Matsui" is just Law and Order or maybe CSI; police work on tv like a relieve of boredom for the masses, every case, all the lines so formulaic, the confusion is predictable, the anger so identical show to show, turning it out 3 times a week. Some people prefer it to NYPD Blue. Yankees fans and Mets fans, mostly.

On Blue, David Milch, Stephen Bochco and Jack Clark (ex-Brooklyn detective) were dying every week, it was so important. It's not difficult to tell the difference.