Go Go Matsui!

One of my favorite ballplayers has been, ever since his joining the Yankees in 2003, Hideki Matsui. His approach, attitude, and production have been positive qualities that he brought to his seven years with the Yankees, his one year with the Angels, and this year with the Oakland A's.

He was even named World Series MVP for the Yankees in 2009 when the Phillies couldn't, apparently, get him out or keep him from getting extra-base hits (he hit .615 and slugged 1.385).

Remember this from November 2009?



Wednesday night, in a victory for the A's over the Tigers (which, being for a team player like Matsui makes it all the more meaningful), Hideki Matsui hit his 168th career* major league home run.

I put that asterisk there on 168 because those are his career homers in the American professional leagues, and when you add it to his 332 major league homers from his days playing in Japan, you get to the cool fact (for baseball fans, since numbers play a bigger role in baseball than anywhere else) that last night Matsui hit his 500th major league home run, spanning the two sets of major leagues.

Go Go Matsui!