If you bump into Brandon Moss on the street, ask him about the Tokyo Dome. Four weeks ago, Moss hit the first home run of his big league career as the Red Sox opened the 2008 season in Japan. Not surprisingly, the 24-year-old OF/1B became the only player to hit his first MLB home run on Japanese soil. Moss, who is currently with the Triple A Pawtucket Red Sox, talked about his Far East experience.
Brandon Moss: It was a very awesome experience. I had been looking forward to going there, and hoping that I’d get the opportunity all spring. That’s what I kind of prepared myself for all winter. I knew that I probably didn’t have a good chance of making the team out of spring training, but I wanted to make the expanded roster that was going to Japan. That was my goal, so to get that opportunity — I had a great time with it. It was a great culture with nice people and a very easy, slow pace that I really liked. And the baseball was a lot of fun.
DL: What Japan pretty much what you expected?
BM: It was not what I expected. You always hear about how populated it is, and I was surprised at how clean it was. I expected it to be a lot more hustle-bustle, but it very laid-back and a very nice culture.
DL: Where you prepped regarding the culture prior to the trip?
BM: No, they just expected us to be professionals. Any time that you’re a guest in someone else’s country you pretty much know how you should be acting. You’re going to try to act with the utmost respect. My wife came on the trip, and we went to a few different places that people had told us to go to – some tourist places – so we got to enjoy the culture a little bit. We enjoyed the food and tried a few different things.
DL: What was the ballpark like?
BM: The ballpark was smaller than the ones here. The gaps were much shorter. And it was very unique how the fans acted. They would get really quiet when we were hitting, out of respect to the pitchers, and when they were hitting it would get really rambunctious, which was great.
DL: What was batting practice like?
BM: Batting practice was a lot of fun because of those short gaps. A lot of balls went out that I thought weren’t going to make it. What’s interesting is that Japanese teams use two batting cages, but we didn’t do that. We just used a single batting cage like we always do.
DL: You hit your first big league home run in Japan, a game-tying shot in the ninth inning off Huston Street. I have to ask you about that.
BM: It was what it was; it was great. I don’t even know how to explain it. I’ve never hit a home run that felt bad so to say that it felt great would definitely be an understatement. It was just one of those situations where you come up and try to have a good at-bat, and I just wanted to get on base for Varitek behind me. I kind of had a sense of how he was going to pitch me, and I was able to get good wood on the ball. I just hit it.
DL: What did you think when it came off your bat?
BM: I honestly thought it was going to go a little father than it did, because of the balls I hit in batting practice. But as long as it went out, that was fine with me. Running around the bases, all I could think about was the fact that I had just tied the game with a home run. That’s all I cared about.
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