Pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka plays a game of long toss with catcher George Kottaras during his first official day in training camp as a member of the Boston Red Sox. Nearly 100 media members were in attendance.

AP / Chitose Suzuki

FORT MYERS, Fla. — George Kottaras is in Red Sox camp trying to impress the Boston coaching staff, hoping to shove Doug Mirabelli out of the reserve catcher’s role.

It’s a relatively low-level battle as spring-training dramas go.

Yesterday, though, George Kottaras was in the middle of intense media scrutiny with more than 70 members of the media either holding TV cameras, still cameras or notepads, recording every movement of his game of catch at an otherwise deserted minor-league complex.

It wasn’t as if Kottaras hadn’t been watched by a large media horde before. He did play for Greece in the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, so marching in for the Opening Ceremonies was done so in front of a large media and fan presence.

“But this was the first time I’ve ever experienced this for a long-toss session,” said Kottaras after the workout.

Well, OK, if the truth be known, the media wasn’t there to see George. It was the pitcher playing long toss with Kottaras who attracted the attention, some newcomer, some guy the Red Sox picked up over the winter from Japan.

A guy by the name of Daisuke Matsuzaka.

Remember him? He’s the right-hander the Red Sox paid his Japanese League team, the Seibu Lions, a whopping $51.1-million posting price, just to get the chance to talk to him about a contract to play in Boston and bolster the team’s starting rotation. And after talking with Matsuzaka and his agent, Scott Boras, the Sox wound up signing him to a six-year $52-million deal.

Little wonder that the media, especially the media from Japan, where Matsuzaka is a 26-year-old legend, flocked to the complex, awaiting the arrival of Dice-K to chronicle his first steps on Red Sox spring-training soil.

The media began assembling around 7:30 yesterday morning to see Matsuzaka, whose arrival at the Tampa airport on Monday night was covered by Japanese and local media, spawning a brief question-and-answer session.

Matsuzaka was the only focus at camp yesterday because the team was having organizational meetings that included the trainers, so unofficial strenuous workouts were discouraged. Pitchers and catchers don’t have to report until Friday.

Around 10 a.m., Red Sox media officials advised the growing crowd, with cameras pointed down the street, hoping for a shot of Dice-K’s arrival, that he wouldn’t be getting to the complex until around noon.

And at exactly 12:01, Matsuzaka, driving a black Cadillac Escalade, drove into the parking lot as the cameras took video and clicked for still shots as he and his personal assistant, Atsushi, got out of the vehicle. Atsushi opened the trunk and pulled out a black adidas gym bag, which he handed to Matsuzaka, who was wearing a sleeveless gray T-shirt, gray shorts and a pair of sunglasses perched on top of his head.

Matsuzaka, ignoring the stir his arrival caused, was escorted into the team’s offices by security chief Charlie Cellucci. Matsuzaka, who, the Sox said, wouldn’t talk to the media, didn’t acknowledge them as he made his way into the building.

By then, the media contingent had swelled to about 85-90, the majority of them from Japanese news outlets, with three TV trucks adorned with satellite dishes on top adding to the crush.

At 12:32, wearing a Red Sox spring training T-shirt and no cap, his sunglasses still firmly in place on top of his head, Dice-K was escorted out the back door of the clubhouse by Cellucci and clubhouse men Joe Cochran and Edward "Pookie" Jackson for his first look at the five-field complex.

Again the media scurried to get in position to watch his every move. After a few minutes, Matsuzaka went onto a field where Kottaras was waiting. Dice-K did several stretching exercises and some running, pausing at the outfield fence to look into a canal that runs behind the field, possibly checking for the alligators that live in the water there.

Eventually, he began playing catch with Kottaras and, after about four minutes of that exercise, with Matsuzaka moving farther and farther back, the media was shooed away from the field, locked out of the complex and sent back to the parking lot.

It was only a short workout, and afterwards, Kottaras was made available to the media. He had no information about Dice-K’s mythical gyro ball, or any other pitch for that matter because it was just a simple, and brief, long-toss session.

Kottaras, who had caught Akinori Otsuka, another former Japanese League star pitcher, in spring training two years ago when the two were San Diego teammates, said a few words to Matsuzaka in Japanese yesterday, but Dice-K good-naturedly pointed out a subtle usage problem with the catcher’s words.

Matsuzaka, meanwhile, used one English word – “sorry” — when one of his tosses floated a bit away from Kottaras in the wind.

All in all, said Kottaras with a shrug, the session was no big deal.

“I was just here with (non-roster catcher) Dusty Brown working on some catching drills with (coach) Gary Tuck, and they told us they needed someone to play catch with him, so I just went out and did a job to help him out,” said Kottaras.

skrasner@projo.com