February 26, 2008 Uncut: Josh Beckett on Sox upcoming trip to Japan Play video

(NECN: Fort Myers, FL) - Josh Beckett of the Boston Red Sox plays catch with NECN's Chris Collins while talking about the team's upcoming trip to Japan.

Beckett says he's happy to be a part of it, but he worries the traveling will be tough on some of the guys, especially the position players.

And, it's just as hard to get tickets for a Red Sox game in Japan as it is in Boston. Major league's season-opening series between the Red Sox and the Oakland Athletics on March 25th and 26th at the 55,000-seat Tokyo Dome is sold out.

Boston and Oakland will be the third set of teams to open the regular season at the Tokyo Dome, following the New York Mets and Chicago Cubs (2000), and the New York Yankees and Tampa Bay (2004).

A scheduled 2003 series between Oakland and Seattle at the Tokyo Dome was canceled because of the threat of war in Iraq.

Boston left-hander Hideki Okajima could be the lone Japanese pitcher for the World Series champions in the two-game series, as Daisuke Matsuzaka may miss the series because his wife is expecting to give birth around that time.

Beckett finished second to Cleveland's C.C. Sabathia in voting for the American League Cy Young award last year. He was 4-0 with a 1.20 ERA, 35 strikeouts and two walks in four postseason starts, including a 7-1 win over Sabathia and the Indians with his team facing elimination in Game 5 of the American League Championship Series.

Beckett went on to win Game 3 of the World

Series sweep over Colorado, improving his lifetime record in October to 6-2 with a 1.71 ERA, including his star-making, World Series MVP performance against the Yankees in 2003.

For now, he's a relative bargain, with two years and $20 million - plus a $12 million team option for 2010 - left on the three-year contract extension he signed midway through 2006.