FORT MYERS, Fla. (AP) – Curt Schilling looked into the dozens of cameras and made one thing clear: The Red Sox pitcher who usually gets most of the attention will remain the staff leader despite Daisuke Matsuzaka’s potential to be an ace.

Schilling is optimistic that Matsuzaka – the reason all the cameras were there – will achieve that status.

“The kid is phenomenally talented,” Schilling said Sunday. “I think he’s an ace in the making, stuff-wise. Makeup-wise, he’s very polished. He’s very composed.”

On Sunday, Matsuzaka and Schilling were among 14 pitchers who threw from bullpen mounds on a cool, windy opening day of Boston’s spring training. The other three starters – Josh Beckett, Jonathan Papelbon and Tim Wakefield – and Japanese left-hander Hideki Okajima joined them.

Schilling, entering his fourth season with the team at age 40, said he considers himself the leader of the pitching staff.

“Absolutely,” he said. “I don’t think it extends much beyond that. I’ve never felt it’s a pitcher’s place on a 25-man roster” to be a leader.

But he left no doubt that he expects to be Boston’s opening day starter for the second straight season on April 2 in Kansas City.

“I feel good. I’ll be ready to go opening day,” Schilling said. “This is absolutely a World Series caliber ball club and we need to be ready to go right out of the chute and I feel like I am.”

He might fill that role at least through 2008 if he and the Red Sox work out a contract. And he hasn’t ruled out pitching beyond then.

Schilling recently said he won’t retire after the 2007 season as previously stated, but he wants a contract for next year settled during spring training. He doesn’t expect that to be a distraction as he prepares for the season.

“We’re talking now and we’ll continue to talk,” Schilling said. “The decisions to come back were based on the family. My wife and kids and I had a long couple of discussions in which it was something that they were very comfortable (with) and when they became comfortable with it I immediately became comfortable with it.”

Schilling is also becoming more comfortable with Matsuzaka, who signed a $52 million contract with Boston, including $51.1 million for the right to negotiate with him. The two, plus Okajima, chatted through an interpreter and laughed on the field before they threw.

“I’m trying to learn some conversational Japanese,” Schilling said. “He’s got a whole different gig going. There’s 200 people here just for him and he gives off the impression that he doesn’t want to be an inconvenience to other people which is, I think, a pretty neat thing.”

And how was Schilling’s Japanese?

“Very good,” a smiling Matsuzaka responded in English after the question was interpreted into Japanese.

Matsuzaka threw 45 pitches, 25 from the windup and 20 from the stretch, during his 13-minute session. Manager Terry Francona said he would pitch his first exhibition game March 2 against Boston College.

“It’s quite a bit early to make any assessment of anybody,” said Jason Varitek, who caught his pitches, “but the ball definitely came out of his hand real well.”

Schilling saw similarities between Matsuzaka and former Boston ace Pedro Martinez.

“He has multiple strikeout pitches,” Schilling said. “Those are the kind of guys that can go out and not feel good and still dominate a game.”

Matsuzaka said he threw “at the level of maybe 60 to 70 percent and, for the beginning, I think it was good.”

Afterward, his six-pitcher group fielded grounders from Francona. The object was to keep balls from getting behind them and allow them to have fun. On Matsuzaka’s first two rounds with his new drill, he didn’t stop any as he and his teammates laughed.

“You get to know a little bit about their personality. It gives me a chance to interact with them,” Francona said. “He’ll get better at it. He’s never done it before.”

Schilling has done it many times since he reached the majors in 1988 with Baltimore.

Last season, he won his first four starts for the first time in his career and had 10 wins at the All-Star break, but finished at 15-7 with a 3.97 ERA

“I just didn’t execute and had some consistently bad performances and did not make the adjustments I had to make” in the second half of the season, Schilling said.

And this offseason he did more than just prepare himself to pitch. He worked on talking with the pitcher who could supplant him as Boston’s ace.

“I got some software, some audio stuff and a bunch of different books,” Schilling said. “You can learn what words mean, but within the context of a conversation you’re speaking half English and half Japanese and none of it makes sense.”

Notes:One of many young Japanese fans wore an old Red Sox jersey of Johnny Damon, who wore number 18, Matsuzaka’s number. The first two letters, DA, remained, but the MON was covered with white tape with the letters, “ISUKE” on it. … Schilling, who has 207 wins, said he doesn’t think about his chances of making the Hall of Fame. “It’s absolutely 100 percent out of my control,” he said.