Story of Dice-K Posting?

tims4wins

PN23's replacement
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Jul 15, 2005
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I'm trying to find the story of why the Sox posted $51.1M for Dice-K back in 2006. IIRC their logic was that they thought they had to bid $50M, so then they bid $51M thinking that someone else (i.e., the MFY) would go slightly above $50M to outbid them, so then they upped it to $51.1M just in case the MFY bid $51M. Of course the MFY only ended up bidding like $33M and the Mets bid around $40M so the Sox were negotiating against themselves, but that's not the point. Does anyone have the source / reference? Was it in Feeding the Monster?
 
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Omar's Wacky Neighbor

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Leaving in a bit to the studio :)
Wasn’t there some kind of cultural lucky or good luck number involved in the bid, when $1.1M was tacked on to the $50M?

Sourced: Mets we’re certain that they’d won the bidding. When the Sox bid/envelope was announced, there were gasps in the room. Everyone, especially the Mets, was blown away by the Sox bid. Iirc the Mets contingent thought the gasps were for their own bid, that’s how confident they were.

EDIT apologies, you asked for a source on the actual $51.1M bid, and I didn’t provide that.
 
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Harry Hooper

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Per yardbarker, posting fee was:

The Sox paid a then-record posting fee of $51,111,111.11 to acquire Matsuzaka’s services from the Lions and then inked the righty to a six-year contract worth $52M in guaranteed money.
There's a quote from Henry or Lucchino somewhere explaining the rationale about that particular amount being the bid.


Found it:
Jim Caple:

as Gordon Edes wrote in a terrific story on the wooing of Matsuzaka in Sunday's Boston Globe, the Red Sox arrived at the $51,111,111.11 bid because owner John Henry thought that string of 11s would be lucky. Now, when you have the luxury of slapping $1,111,111.11 on a bid for the pure look of it, you definitely are not living in the same neighborhood as the Kansas City Royals or Pittsburgh Pirates (or even the Chicago White Sox, for that matter).
 
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bsj

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I remember there was this website dedicated to the pursuit of Dice K in the months leading up to his signing. Cant remember what it was. Not sure if it was from there.
 

bohous

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Per yardbarker, posting fee was:



There's a quote from Henry or Lucchino somewhere explaining the rationale about that particular amount being the bid.
I seem to recall it had something to do with 8 being a lucky number in Japan, so they tacked on 8 ones, although there are technically 9.

edit: I see HH added the part about the 11's (not 8), which makes more sense.
 
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cardiacs

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Slightly off-topic, but I have a fuzzy remembrance of a poster who claimed to throw the gyroball, but was later found to be a phony?
 

Bozo Texino

still hates Dave Kerpen
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I remember there was this website dedicated to the pursuit of Dice K in the months leading up to his signing. Cant remember what it was. Not sure if it was from there.
I followed that site like crazy. I seem to remember its owner being convinced Matsuzaka would end up a Yankee.
 

zenslinger

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Jul 28, 2009
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Fun Edes article, though I remember reading back then that the number was somehow a reference to one of Dice-K's heroic high school outings or stats or something.

(For those who haven't been to Japan, the national high school tournament is no joke, a major national event.)
 

DukeSox

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SumnerH

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Kyle Boddy used to post here? His Driveline company has been a big deal in recent years, he also just spent two years working for the Reds as 'pitching coordinator'.

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/27752301/what-cincinnati-reds-hiring-kyle-boddy-means-changing-game-baseball
https://sonsofsamhorn.net/index.php?members/gyroballerkyle.30275/#about

“Once upon a time, I learned how to throw the gyroball and shared this with SoSH. That was quite some time ago. Let's forget about that.”

Last active in 2011, and his posts are all archived by this point.
 

MuppetAsteriskTalk

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Kyle B was also a regular on a poker forum I used to post on. He posted a lot in the sports and fitness subs, but I think he moved on from there years ago. I had no idea that he used to post here too.
 

Omar's Wacky Neighbor

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Leaving in a bit to the studio :)
So we just had on PlutoTV and they were running a ton of commercials for CBS shows. In one commercial for a cop show (could be the Jimmy Smits show) one ranking officer asks another ranking officer if (Red Sox content) he maybe knows how to track a plane based on just the tail numbers, as if it was akin to finding your way into the mainframe at Langley or McLean.

And I'm thinking "You rank amateurs, welcome to 15+ years ago..... yeah, I've got the free app on my phone"
 

teddywingman

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Gyroballer kyle used to post videos of him supposedly throwing the pitch. It was low 70's with no movement and indiscernible spin. Around that time I was still playing baseball. Even I would have been crushing those pitches.

The fascination was humorous. It was a unique time in our obsession. Tracking the plane... who were we?
 

donutogre

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This was a solid trip down memory lane, and it's amazing just how throughly mediocre he was after all the hype. I know the hype isn't his fault, and I don't have any real ill will towards the guy (he did contribute to that 2007 team), but he was just... so unpleasant to watch for so long.
 

Bernie Carbohydrate

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This was a solid trip down memory lane, and it's amazing just how throughly mediocre he was after all the hype. I know the hype isn't his fault, and I don't have any real ill will towards the guy (he did contribute to that 2007 team), but he was just... so unpleasant to watch for so long.
I'm sure he's a lovely guy, but his starts were brutal. I don't live in New England, and for a while I'd get up to Boston only once per summer and catch a Sox game. Two consecutive summers my one pilgrimage to Fenway coincided with a Dice-K start. The shuffling. The standing around. The walks.

I guess I shouldn't complain--I got to spend five hours in the Lyric Little Bandbox, but goddam he was the Human Rain Delay on the mound.

The posting was wild, though. Up to that point the record had been Ichiro, at a $13 million fee. John Henry flew in like a boss and dropped 51 million on the table. I suspect it was in part a response to Steinbrenner chirping about the Arod deal:

“We understand that John Henry must be embarrassed, frustrated and disappointed by his failure in this transaction,” Steinbrenner said. “Unlike the Yankees, he chose not to go the extra mile for his fans in Boston. It is understandable, but wrong that he would try to deflect the accountability for his mistakes onto others, and to a system for which he voted in favor. It is time to get on with life and forget the sour grapes.”
 

sezwho

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I'm sure he's a lovely guy, but his starts were brutal. I don't live in New England, and for a while I'd get up to Boston only once per summer and catch a Sox game. Two consecutive summers my one pilgrimage to Fenway coincided with a Dice-K start. The shuffling. The standing around. The walks.

I guess I shouldn't complain--I got to spend five hours in the Lyric Little Bandbox, but goddam he was the Human Rain Delay on the mound.

The posting was wild, though. Up to that point the record had been Ichiro, at a $13 million fee. John Henry flew in like a boss and dropped 51 million on the table. I suspect it was in part a response to Steinbrenner chirping about the Arod deal:

“We understand that John Henry must be embarrassed, frustrated and disappointed by his failure in this transaction,” Steinbrenner said. “Unlike the Yankees, he chose not to go the extra mile for his fans in Boston. It is understandable, but wrong that he would try to deflect the accountability for his mistakes onto others, and to a system for which he voted in favor. It is time to get on with life and forget the sour grapes.”
I actually felt bad for the guy. Really caught in the middle of Henry’s squeeze play of overbidding transfer and making up the difference by skimping on salary and thus backing him into a corner with his current team.

He also pitched well in the 2007 World Series including a couple RBIs.