Another spring and another baseball season for the sports-numb nation of Japan. And once again the TV-viewing public is being regaled with starry-eyed tales of wonder regarding its established heroes: Ichiro Suzuki, Hideki Matsui and, this year -- perhaps due to the shortage of heroic clay here in Japan itself -- Kazuhiro Kiyohara of the Tokyo Giants.

Now, hero worship can be fun, but oftentimes the media love-fest makes the ballplayers seem bigger than life. Or even candidates for sainthood. The root-root-root-for-the-home-guys approach can also slosh glossy paint over bleak realities -- realities that the media don't dwell on.

For example, a repeated clip of Matsui blasting a double, punctuated by camera-ham New York fans screaming Matsui's name, can seem a bit surreal when set alongside game-sized facts. Such as . . . in the end, he went one for five, and his team lost by six runs. Of course, with Matsui currently slumping, one for five might look good.