Mmm...gyro.

I'm convinced that at some point this season, 37,000 fans or so will be treated to something remarkable at Fenway Park. Sure, the four homers in a row were pretty special; the six-run ninth on Mother's Day was nice. I'll even say that the sweep of the Yankees in April was decent. But I'm talking about a supernatural event that will change lives.

La and I sat there last night in section 14, row 14 on May 14th and watched Daisuke pitch a glittery gem of a game at the expense of the hottest team in baseball. Detroit came in with a 9-2 mark in the month of May, a 1/2 game better than the current Majors-best Sox. I kept my eyes on the scoreboard to the right of the Monster, showing Dice's every pitch by speed and pitch type. Fastball, 94. Changeup, 78. Splitter, 82. Cut Fastball, 86. Curveball, 81. Here's a quick math lesson--that's five pitches he threw for strikes with a range of 16MPH from fastball to changeup. Five. But when he adds that mythical sixth pitch...when that scoreboard up there tries to register "Gyroball, 90"...I fully expect the lights to short out on that board and create an electrical display of fireworks that George Lukas would be proud of.

Who knows if that will ever happen at Fenway. Frankly, I really couldn't care less about this 'gyroball'. I've seen this man pitch three times at Fenway on this young season, last night being the best vantage point I've witnessed. He's different. He's got this way about him that can't be verbalized by a half-wit blog writer from the North Shore of Massachusetts. But what I can and will verbalize to you is why Fenway is so different when he's on the mound.

We live in a very tense world right now, a world where family dinner tables can't agree on what it really is to be American and what cultural acceptance should consist of. If you watch 'Meet the Press' on any given Sunday, you're most likely going to hear Tim Russert ask any guest in front of him about foreign policy and the war in Iraq, even if it's Daisuke himself up there. I have to say though, it's pretty refreshing to walk into Fenway Park and be swarmed by vendors selling Japanese headbands a-la Daniel LaRusso. 1/3 of the crowd must be of Asian descent when he pitches and the media is dominated by Japanese camera crews. I know it's a little corny and possibly small-minded of me to comment on the cultural harmony of Fenway Park when Daisuke pitches, especially when the team is the best in the bigs and nothing is really wrong in Sox Nation. But it's something. It means nothing in the grand scheme of things but it means something to a few thousand Red Sox fans who are probably overlooking their deep-seeded racial biases in support of Matsuzaka. And that's something.

There's another side of this equation that looks beyond the presumption of global harmony within the old ballpark when Dice pitches. I noticed last night that when he runs onto the field, he superstitiously hops over the chalk lines between the dugout and mound. I also saw him roll several balls over the dugout to kids in the stands as he returned after a 1/2 inning of work. For a Japanese player who has been a professional athlete since what seems like the age of 10, it's awesome to see him enjoying the game and acting like a kid. It gives me goosebumps when him and Ortiz engage in their congratulatory slaps and bows after games...it also makes me laugh, watching a 6'4, hulking man-beast bow and embrace with a much smaller, boyish Japanese pitcher. Daisuke and so many other Japanese baseball players have grown up and into these jobs as professional athletes and their paths have been a lot different that the average American athlete. The work ethic is more intense, the pressure can be much greater and I think that overall, more is expected of you; especially for someone who is considered a national hero like our man Dice. But he still loves and enjoys the game and clearly has a lot of fun in doing so.

I knew that once baseball season started, I would find incredible difficulty in writing about other topics. But I love baseball, I love the Sox and I love Fenway Park. The Patriots occupy a chunk of my heart as well, along with the C's. But Gillette and the Garden (the new Garden...the old Garden is different) don't share that romantic, mystical feel of Fenway. There has already been a season's worth of emotion in this 2007 Red Sox campaign, and we're only halfway through May. Just another reason why baseball season is just different.