Play Ball! A's vs. Red Sox in Tokyo, 3 a.m.

Oakland A's and world champion Red Sox kick off the 2008 season in Tokyo

The 2008 baseball season gets started early for the Oakland A’s. Really early. Like, 3 a.m. early.

Major League Baseball selected the A’s and the Boston Red Sox to play the first two games of the 2008 regular season at the Tokyo Dome in Japan. The A’s played a pair of exhibition games over the weekend, one against the Yomiuri Giants and the other against the Hanshin Tigers (winning both), and tonight—well, Tuesday morning—they take on the Red Sox. Joe Blanton gets the opening day start for the A’s, who traded mainstays Dan Haren, Nick Swisher, Mark Kotsay, and Marco Scutaro during the offseason in an attempt to get younger. Taking the hill for the defending World Series Champion Red Sox is Daisuke Matsuzaka, the Japanese All Star that Boston brought to America for $100 million last winter.

The game will air on ESPN2 at 3:05 a.m. If you don’t feel like skipping a night of sleep to celebrate the hometown nine’s new season, don’t worry; I’ll be staying up to watch and keeping a running diary of the game, which we’ll post on diablomag.com tomorrow morning.

Posted at 04:25 PM in Best Of Editor Picks | Permalink