Can you say “steroids” in Japanese?

Bud Selig couldn’t either, but that was before he decided to move Opening Day to Tokyo.

So imagine the commissioner’s delight, in three separate news conferences, to learn that members of the foreign press were every bit as interested in “su-te-ro-i-do” as the domestic snoops he left behind.

While learning a new language can be its own reward, in this case, it’s just icing on the cake. The reason the commish ordered the New York Yankees and Tampa Bay Devil Rays across the Pacific Ocean to kick off the U.S. season was to sell tickets, juice TV ratings and move merchandise.

By most measures, it looks as if he’s finally hit one out of the park.

The handful of games won’t erase the trade deficit, but nobody who went through the trouble of traveling will be going home empty-handed. The players can expect to find an extra $30,000 in their pay envelopes, and their two games against each other sold out the spacious Tokyo Dome.

Because both games count as home dates for Tampa Bay, the Devil Rays make out like bandits. They’re being reimbursed by baseball for lost revenues at Tropicana Field, where the average attendance was a major league-low 13,070.

The exhibition pitting New York against the Yomiuri Giants, Japan’s homegrown Yankees, created so much demand that tickets were sold by lottery. Even then, they were gobbled up within an hour. And Saturday’s free workouts, which were little more than walkthroughs by two jet-lagged squads, pulled in almost 35,000 fans, many of whom left sporting T-shirts ($38), replica jerseys ($137) and team jackets ($186).

Small wonder George Steinbrenner was in such a good mood, even after his Yankees lost the opener 8-3. The owner didn’t make the trip, but he responded to the setback by having his spokesman remind the media of lyrics from the song “It’s Not Where You Start,” which just happened to be part of a Broadway show Steinbrenner co-produced in 1973, the year he bought the ballclub.

“Baseball is a great challenge where one must travel along a treacherous path, and this journey will show your true greatness,” he said. “It’s not for the faint of heart. Only the strong will prevail.”

The Boss may be guilty of exaggeration on occasion, but in this instance he’s got it just about right.

The only real drawback to the trip is hopping all those time zones, and the havoc it will wreak on the players’ bodies and brains. After playing exhibitions Sunday and Monday, real games Tuesday and Wednesday, both teams fly back to Florida for Grapefruit League games. New York won’t play its first game at Yankee Stadium until April 8.

“We have three Opening Days in three different cities,” Yankees manager Joe Torre said. And if the first one turns out to be an omen, it’s a safe bet Steinbrenner will be singing a different tune.

It’s one thing if the Devil Rays stagger out of the gate, but that won’t work for the Yankees.

Since Torre arrived in 1996, they’ve won four World Series and lost two others. Last year’s upset by the Marlins was so galling that Steinbrenner swore off signing any new ballplayers for at least a week. Once he recovered, The Boss added Alex Rodriguez, the best player in the game, and Gary Sheffield, one of its most dangerous hitters.

Not that anybody should feel sorry for the Yankees; it’s just that you’d hate to be in Torre’s shoes, and try to blame an awful start on a serious case of jet lag. But it could happen.

To the Yankees’ credit, no alibis have been offered in advance and there’s been none of the bellyaching that marked the Mets-Cubs series in Japan four years ago. Even though his team didn’t draw the short straw that year, then-St. Louis slugger Mark McGwire whined long and hard that any team had to go.

“It comes down to how much money can they make,” McGwire said, referring to the people who sign his checks.

“It’s not what can we do for the good of the players,” he added. “That’s what upsets me about it.”

On the scale of silly utterances by out-of-touch ballplayers, it wasn’t as self-absorbed as Rickey Henderson’s classic renegotiating rant – “All I’m asking for is what I want!” – or as clueless as what Henderson’s one-time teammate, Oakland outfielder Willie Wilson, said when informed the A’s were flying commercial.

“You mean,” Wilson asked, “we got to go with people?”

Well, yes.

Because the same rule applies to airplanes and stadiums. The way to make money is to make sure as many of them are as packed as can be – even if they happen to be in Japan.

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Jim Litke is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at jlitkeap.org

AP-ES-03-31-04 1751EST