TEN days ago in Japan there was the single biggest incidence ever of people calling into work sick. The reason was that Ichiro Suzuki of the Seattle Mariners (big in Japan) was coming up against Boston Red Sox pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka (even bigger in Japan) for the first time. The Mariners won out but Matsuzaka (right), or Dice K as he is now known in the States, did more than enough to confirm his freakish talent and to demonstrate why Boston recently paid $51 million for his services.

According to legend Dice K is the only person in the world who can throw a gyroball. The pitch is basically baseball's Loch Ness monster: lots of people say it exists, but there doesn't seem to be any concrete proof it does. It's supposedly a fastball that spins like a bullet and breaks three feet sideways in the air. If that sounds like a defiance of the laws of physics you should know it was invented in Japan by a baseball coach and a scientist with a supercomputer. Seriously. They've even published a book on it which they claim is called The Secret of the Miracle Pitch, but if you run the Japanese title through an internet translator you get Chasing the Demon Sphere, which is much better.

Never one to be knowingly up with the times, this couch only caught up with the Dice K bandwagon when it rolled into Toronto during the week. It's shocking to think that most people say soccer is too dull to truly catch on in the USA when you basically have to be drunk to make their national sport interesting. Good baseball games have their charms but when it's dull, it's horrid. I'll wager that no one above the legal drinking age in that stadium was sober, and that includes the commentators and possibly some of the players.

On TV it's best watched when you have something else to do . . . arrange accounts, write a will, stomp grapes, whatever. If something exciting happens you'll hear, as noise levels will rise above that of 50,000 people sipping from plastic cups. In fairness to the crowd though, the game was crushingly predictable.

Dice K was brilliant, but the attack behind him may as well have been wielding stale baguettes as baseball bats.

Whatever action there was took place off the field of play. When a Toronto fielder moved to catch one of the game's few hits he had the ball knocked away from him by an over-zealous fan leaning over the railing trying to claim a souvenir.

The crowd's groan had barely started when a large slice of pizza arced into shot and splattered all over the offending fan. Quality shooting from somebody. Note they threw their food and not their beer.

The two commentators were highly cheered by this rare moment of excitement and showed it from as many angles as possible, in slow motion and high definition. Having wrung what they could out of the moment they went back to chatting about their families, the weather and how bad a newspaper the Toronto Globe and Mail is. "You don't even have one cup of coffee down and you are done with that sports section." Shortly after they had a woman who had won a competition up in the commentary box with them, and she asked to give a shout-out to her daughter who was at home sick, just like they used do on The Late Late Show years ago. And throughout all this there was no action on the pitch worth talking about.

But plenty Budweiser sold.

Less dull of course is ice hockey, which makes up in thrills and spills what it lacks in teeth. Ireland took on South Africa on Thursday in Division Three of the World Championships at the Dundalk Ice Dome. Yup, apparently we play ice hockey now, but perhaps we shouldn't get too attached to the sport as global warming must be damaging its demographics.

Although watching it you can't help but think that if Kilkenny was to have an ice age anytime soon we'd be world champions.

If Henry Shefflin has ever owned a pair of rollerblades in his life he'd have great fun at this. More fun than Setanta's host Sarah Flaherty anyway. After the first period she grabbed Irish coach John Crawley for a few words, saying, "Now a little birdie has told me you were a goalie, ex-Man City.

What do you make of the keepers here tonight?" Crawley didn't blink before replying, "Well, I wasn't a goalie. That's wrong." Oh.

Later she was questioning the South African coach and after discussing tactics turned to the camera to sign off the interview by saying, "And a very pretty coach he is too." An odd choice, but maybe this kind of approach is to be encouraged, if only so we can be treated to the sight of Marty Morrissey stopping Ger Loughnane on the sideline some championship Sunday with the words, "My but you're looking well today." Either Ger would be too flummoxed to react or Marty would be calling into work sick the following day.