from the New York Times

Hideki Matsui prepares his own snacks. He cooks rice and pats it into lumps. He stuffs the lumps with salmon, wraps them in seaweed and eats them just before games. The menu in the players' lounge does not include rice balls, so Matsui adapts. He always does.

As Matsui enters his third season with the Yankees, the striking thing is how seamless his transition has been. As much as any player, Matsui embodies the Yankee ideal, an identity that seems to fade with each mercenary who enters the clubhouse.

In many ways, Matsui is Derek Jeter with a two-digit uniform number. Even the Boston Red Sox have declared him a true Yankee. Matsui earned three championship wristwatches with the Yomiuri Giants and has no World Series rings with the Yankees. Yet he commands so much respect from opponents that it seems he has been here forever.

"He's earned every bit of it," Curt Schilling, the Red Sox ace, said. "It's everything about him. He's a damn good player."

Matsui is good, and only getting better. He is 30 years old, and he improved in almost every statistical category in his second season with the Yankees. His contract expires after this season, and he plans to wait until the winter to negotiate a new one. Given his career arc, that decision could make him much richer.

"I like the Yankees because it's a special environment, a special team and a great place to play baseball," Matsui said through his interpreter, Rogelio Kahlon. "But the way my feelings are, I just want to play as long as I can. Obviously, I would like to stay with the Yankees as long as I feel I'm needed by them and can be productive."

The Yankees would rather sign Matsui now, but if they have to wait, they will. For all the misfits they have imported the last few seasons, Matsui is an exception.

Jason Giambi and Kevin Brown remain with the team because no one else will take their contracts. Gary Sheffield has played courageously through pain, but controversy dogs him. Alex Rodriguez, with his air of superiority, is a virtual loner in the clubhouse.

Matsui fits neatly with the Yankees' old guard, with the characteristics that match the archetype.

"For me, it just looks like he goes about his business pretty quiet, and he's kind of a low-key guy," said Red Sox pitcher Bronson Arroyo, who clashed with Rodriguez last season. "I have a lot of respect for guys who are really quality players and kind of act like your average Joe and just go out and take care of business every day.

"Regardless of whether they strike out four times or hit four home runs, they don't show pitchers up when they run the bases, and they run hard to first base and play the game the way people expect them to."

When the Yankees made their only visit to Red Sox camp this spring, Manager Joe Torre took Matsui along. Nobody dislikes Matsui, Torre said, and he had a point. It is not easy boo a player who nods to the umpire and to the catcher when he comes to the plate.

"You don't see a lot of guys do that," Jean Afterman, the Yankees' assistant general manager, said. "He has tremendous respect for everybody around him, and I think respect breeds respect."

On the Yankees, the closest comparison is probably Jeter, despite the difference in skills. Jeter and Matsui were each raised on success, Jeter with the Yankees, Matsui with the Giants. Early in their careers, each understood the responsibility of being the public face of a famous franchise.

Afterman, who has an extensive background in Japanese baseball, said Matsui always avoided the many controversies that surrounded the Giants. Except for a broadside from the team's principal owner, George Steinbrenner, in 2002, Jeter has done the same for the Yankees.

"He kind of stays above the fray without being snobby about it," Afterman said of Matsui. "To me, he's very similar to Derek in a lot of ways. He'll get his uniform dirty, but there are some things both Derek and Hideki don't really consider part of the game."

And some that they do. Early last season, Matsui ran full speed for a foul ball down the left-field line in Chicago. He missed the ball but flipped into the stands and slammed his face against the back of a seat. The effort was not too different from Jeter's dive into the stands at Yankee Stadium against the Red Sox in July.

"He plays the game the right way," Jeter said. "He plays hard, pulls for everybody, and he wants to win. You hear about Godzilla, and you think a big home run guy's coming. But the way he plays the game, he pays attention to the little things."

Matsui is not demonstrative like Jeter, who holds out his fist at big moments and barks to teammates on the field. But he sees himself in other aspects of Jeter's personality.

"Absolutely," Matsui said. "The environment he's played in, his professionalism, the way he prepares for every game, and just his overall demeanor. Perhaps there might be a lot of similarities between us, going all the way back to childhood."

Jeter was a first-round draft pick, but Matsui was even more of a prodigy. He earned his Godzilla nickname in high school, when he hit 60 home runs. He played his first game with the Giants in 1993, the year he turned 19.

"Of all the high school players who have gone on to play professionally, he had by far the most expectations," said Kaoru Okazaki, a Yankees minor league instructor, who was a veteran with the Giants when Matsui joined them. "Everybody was expecting him to play well, even when he was 18 years old. There was a lot of pressure, but he took it upon himself."

Matsui hit .223 his rookie season in Japan. He played nine more years there and made the All-Star team every time.

His Yankees career is unfolding the same way. He started slowly in 2003, prompting Steinbrenner to criticize him mildly, and he finished with only 16 homers. But as the season went on, Matsui established himself as a heady, clutch player with a mastery of baseball subtleties.

He improved last season in ways big and small. Matsui hit 31 homers and raised his batting average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage. In the outfield, he worked with the coach Roy White on his throws, waiting a moment before releasing the ball for better speed and accuracy.

There were highlights: the opening-series home run in Tokyo, a second All-Star Game appearance, a playoff-record nine extra-base hits in the championship series against Boston. But more than anything, Matsui blended in.

"He's not a guy that if you look at the charts, you see a lot of highs and lows," Torre said. "He's had a lot of great games, but he's had so many good games."

The good games seem likely to continue, and multiply. Matsui is having a torrid spring training, with five home runs, including two on Saturday. The transition is over, but the ascension may be only beginning.