What better place to open the season?

The Red Sox begin their defense of the 2007 World Championship on Tuesday...
They play the Oakland A's, whose home park is a mere 40 miles from my house.

So what better place to play than in Tokyo!

A quick glance in the American Heritage Dictionary shows the definition of "retarded" as followed:

1. Often Offensive Affected with mental retardation.
2. Occurring or developing later than desired or expected; delayed.

I would add

3. The starting of the regular season in Japan only to fly back and play more exhibition games.

As stupid as these trips are, rest assured I will be up at 3 AM PDT watching them.

And as a rabid Godzilla fan from my youth, I guess this gives me as good an excuse as any to show the Japanese trailer of one of my favorite Godzilla films, Godzilla vs Gigan (or as it was called on the Creature Double Feature on Channel 56 in Boston, Godzilla on Monster Island).

For my fellow Godzilla fans, it was the one with the hippie, the cartoonists and the cockroaches disguised as humans using an amusement park as the control center of world domination.

It's worth a rent.