Daisuke Matsuzaka
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Daisuke Matsuzaka (松坂 大輔, Matsuzaka Daisuke, ; born September 13, 1980) is a Japanese professional baseball pitcher for the Saitama Seibu Lions of Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB). He has played for the Boston Red Sox and New York Mets of Major League Baseball (MLB) and the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks and Chunichi Dragons of Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB).

Matsuzaka was selected the MVP of the inaugural and the second World Baseball Classic, and is an Olympic bronze medalist.

He is the first player to have won both a World Series and a World Baseball Classic.

Matsuzaka was born on September 13, 1980, in Aomori, Aomori Prefecture. He was named after Japanese high school star pitcher Daisuke Araki. Growing up in Koto, Tokyo, he studied kendo from the age of five to nine and began playing organized baseball when he was in 3rd grade.

After excelling at the Little League and junior high level, Daisuke Matsuzaka was admitted into Yokohama High School, a baseball powerhouse, in the spring of 1996. By his second of three years, he had developed into the school's ace pitcher. Despite his early success, he would experience a setback that summer when he threw a go-ahead wild pitch in the semi-final game of the Kanagawa Prefecture preliminary round of the National High School Baseball Championship (Summer Koshien).