BOSTON — After months of negotiations, internal debate and some arm-twisting on the part of Major League Baseball, the Red Sox yesterday officially signed off on opening their 2008 season some 6,711 miles from home — at the Tokyo Dome against the Oakland A’s.

The two teams will become the fifth and sixth teams to play in Japan, following the path of the New York Mets and Chicago Cubs in 2000 and the New York Yankees and Tampa Bay Devil Rays in 2004.

The plan calls for the A’s and Sox to play two games in Tokyo — March 25 and 26 — before returning to the United States to finish their four-game series at Network Associates Coliseum in Oakland on April 1 and 2.

Before meeting in Japan, the Sox and A’s will play two exhibition games each against Japanese teams on March 22 and March 23. The Sox are tentatively scheduled to depart their spring training base in Fort Myers, Fla. on March 19.

“Opening our regular season in Japan for the third time is another example of Major League Baseball’s commitment to continue the global growth of the game,” said commissioner Bud Selig.

The trip, first proposed last spring, produced a long and sometimes difficult series of negotiations for the clubs involved. Within the Red Sox organization, the majority of the baseball operations department was against the trip, citing concerns about what effect the trip would have on the players for the first month of the season.

Eventually, the Japanese promoters, Major League Baseball and the Major League Baseball Players Association made some concessions to the schedule and travel arrangements to satisfy all parties.

Additionally, the players fought for an increase in the compensation paid by promoters. According to a person familiar with the negotiations, the players will receive approximately $50,000 each for their participation.

Also, the two teams will receive less than the Devil Rays and Yankees did four years ago, in part because of a downturn in the Japanese economy and, somewhat surprisingly, a general decline in interest in baseball there.

In recent weeks, with talks stalled and deadlines looming, Selig, reminding them of their status as recent world champions, urged them to make some concessions for the good of the game and its worldwide marketing efforts.

“There was a lot of discussion, a lot of back and forth,” said Red Sox president and CEO Larry Lucchino in a conference call with reporters from the quarterly owners meetings in Naples, Fla. “We were concerned with the effect on the players and the competitiveness of the schedule. It’s fair to say that some of us took different positions.”

According to Lucchino, the Red Sox will bring their pitchers to spring training “two or three days” earlier than normal to account for the accelerated schedule. Major League Baseball also will allow the A’s and Sox to leave three pitchers — presumably starters — behind in the U.S., while also allowing them to take three more position players who will be eligible for the games in Japan.

When the Sox and A’s return to the States, those three position players will relinquish their roster spots to the pitchers left behind.

The Sox will not return to their Florida base after the games in Japan, but rather, will meet the Los Angeles Dodgers for three exhibition games in L.A. on the final weekend of March. A return to the West Coast is seen as favorable travel adjustment. In 2004, the Yankees suffered from exhaustion after returning to the East Coast.

The existence of exhibition games prior to the regular season games in Japan and in Los Angeles were designed so that the team would not be idle for long stretches of time in the weeks leading up to the start of the April schedule.

The games in Los Angeles will help commemorate the Dodgers’ 50th anniversary move from Brooklyn to southern California and will also serve as a kickoff to the team’s new charity to raise money to fight cancer in children, ThinkCure, which is modeled after the Red Sox’ own Jimmy Fund campaign.

The Dodgers are toying with the idea of playing one of the three games at the Los Angeles Coliseum, but at least two of those games will take place in Dodger Stadium.

In addition to their world-wide popularity, the Red Sox were chosen in part because of the presence of two Japanese-born players who were integral to the team’s championship — Daisuke Matsuzaka and Hideki Okajima.

However, Matsuzaka’s wife is pregnant with the couple’s second child and there are questions whether Matsuzaka will be able to participate in the games.

“We’re aware of the situation,” said Lucchino, “and we’re hopeful that the baby will come at such a time as to allow (Matsuzaka) to participate. We don’t know if the birth is scheduled to take place in Japan or in the U.S.”’

smcadam@projo.com