Dice-K apologies for only pitching 5 innings...

[Trippy]

...while nauseous.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070526/ap_on_sp_ba_ga_su/bba_red_sox_rangers

"I tried my best to take the team as deep into the game as possible to fulfill my responsibility as the starter," Matsuzaka said in the statement. "I regret that I ended up being a burden on my teammates (Friday). I'll do my best to prepare for my next start."

Having been raised in America where it's everybody for him or herself and it doesn't matter who you step on to make it to the top these sorts of statements always amuse me.

[Triforcer]

Read this great book and it will make perfect sense: http://www.amazon.com/You-Gotta-Have-Robert-Whiting/dp/067972947X

Short version: Japanese baseball is like any other type of Japanese work.  The players aren't supposed to be enjoying it, and god forbid if one rises above the crowd. 

[Trippy]

Oh I totally understand why he said it. Even though I'm an American I know enough about the Confucian values of duty, honor, harmony, and the like and the influence they had on Japanese culture where like many of the other things the Japanese borrowed from the Chinese they "cranked it to 11" so to speak.

[schild]

I've seen enough modern popular Japanese TV to know that it's not a matter of enjoying or not enjoying. A lot of people enjoy their work greatly. It's more a "If you're not trying to be first, you're last." The hivemind wants you to give 110% at all times. Strive to be the best. That's where the sense of achievement comes on. And Daisuke couldn't give 110%. He felt sick. The borg were not pleased with the results.

[Fabricated]

It's a Japanese thing. It's not as bad as it was say 10-20+ years ago with the WWII generation but the old Japanese adage "The nail that sticks up will be hammered down" still holds true in most group oriented things there.

[Engels]

An American player displaying this level of self-emasculation would be appear to be very painful and emotionally crippling exercise. A Japanese person saying the same thing is nothing; such statements are simply stock phrases in the Japanese Team Ethics handbook. Its merely an expected and 'polite' statement that's par for the course.

It would probably far more difficult for him to say, "Hey, I was sick, cut me some slack".