Matsui, You're Fired!

Ex-Yankee and current Angel, 松井 秀喜 (Matsui Hideki) became a pitchman for Kirin's Fire Coffee back in November. As that link attests, he adorns several vending machines and a few billboards and he was juxtaposed with his nickname, Godzilla. Once I discovered this, I bought several cans of coffee hoping to grab me a random placed ゴジラ・ストラップ (Godzilla Strap.)

A nearby vending machine offered up the caffeinated brew and I plugged coin after coin into it hoping to win the elusive prize. After grabbing almost a case of cans (nearly 24), the last can before it was emptied was capped off with a metallic strap.



Pretty impressive, so I tried again and got another one by draining another brand of コーヒー. I rarely drink this stuff, so my students were the happy recipients of a couple of dozen cans of stimulants to help them survive my lessons. But it was starting to get pretty darned expensive, so I gave up. A few weeks later, I tried another vending machine and was treated to a cap upon my first deposit of coins! Surprisingly, I tried another brand and was also rewarded with a cap!! I was out of coin and I didn't want to press my luck, so I gave up. Though I tried a few more times, I never did get another one and I'll have to keep a look out at Flea Markets or via Amazon/E-bay/Yahoo.



Here's what I did get: 1954 (X2), 1965 & 1989...








Apparently Matsui was greeted with Blue Oyster Cult's rendition of Godzilla when he strode onto the turf. Anyone know what is played for him as an Angel?


Fire tried another promo for him where you could win this cool clock but there were only a 1000 available throughout Japan, even I'm not stupid enough to attempt those odds!



UPDATE: I knew I had another one...Here is Godzilla from 1995!