This is currently just a rumor being floated out there but Newsday is printing that the Yankees are about to open up the bank to keep Hideki in pinstripes...to the tune of $50 million over four years (update: the NY Times is saying that the $50 million is on the table as well). For those of you keeping score at home, that's an average of $12.5 per year (well above the $7 he earned in his first three years with the Yanks) and would keep him in the Bronx through his age 35 season. If this report turns out to be accurate, we should all pray that he ages as well as his fellow corner outfielder, Mr. Sheffield.

There was something else of note in the article that I found interesting.
The new proposal exceeds a goal Matsui is believed to hold of getting "a dollar more than Ichiro Suzuki," whose Mariners deal is for $44 million over four years.

Honestly, I wouldn't have expected this game of monetary one-upmanship from Matsui. Frank Thomas, Sheff, A-Rod... but not him. Maybe it's my naiveté but he seems so placid about everything when he's at bat, on the field or fielding questions that I wouldn't have expected money matters (or more specifically, how much someone else was being paid) to bother him.