Hideki Matsui wouldn't feast on your family's pet or try eating your teacher for lunch - but the Yankee slugger has lived up to his monster-like nickname in 2003. The man known as Godzilla has sent pitchers screaming from the mound in terror and has helped the New York Yankees win another World Series.

The Legend of Godzilla

Hideki Matsui was born on June 12, 1974 in Ishikawa, Japan. As a kid, Matsui was always much bigger than his classmates and he quickly excelled at baseball (or yakyu as it's known in Japan.) Hideki Matsui went to high school in Kanazawa, which is where he first picked up the nickname Godzilla. Matsui developed his monstrous identity, because he had a serious acne problem (which made him look a bit scary) and because he was always hitting mammoth homeruns. Hideki Matsui once hit a ball in a batting practice that cracked the tiles on the roof of his principal's house, nearly 450 feet away. Hideki Matsui's Godzilla-like reputation became legendary during