championship-caliber
マー君，もうひとつ。
オーナーのスタインブレナー会長の発言ですが，このchampionship-caliberは実にアメリカ的な形容詞です。caliber（calibre）は銃の口径からの比喩で，「チャンピオンになる大きな器の→力量を備えた，最も優秀な」ということです。日本で言われる「常勝軍団」にも近い感じがします。マー君関連の記事は英語表現の宝物であれもこれもとなりそうなので，今日はここいらでヤメ！仕事に戻ります。（UG）
Yankees’ Newest Star Welcomes Biggest Stage
Nobody sells hope like the Yankees. Nobody has such easy access to it. With their money and their marquee, they are a magnetic draw to an overseas sensation like Masahiro Tanaka, who buttoned up a No. 19 pinstriped jersey on Tuesday, tugged on that famous navy blue cap and proclaimed, in English, “I’m very happy to be a Yankee.”
To Tanaka’s right, on a dais before more than 200 reporters in a dining hall at Yankee Stadium, the team’s top executives clapped in delight. After missing the playoffs with an ancient, brittle roster, they had faced the prospect of a long, cold, lonely winter if they wanted to adhere to the goal of reducing their luxury-tax rate. Instead, they invested $470 million, and the penalties, in new talent.
“We know what our fans expect,” Hal Steinbrenner said. “They expect us to field a championship-caliber team, every year, as best we can. I think we’ve got a very good team. We have to stay healthy; that’s a given. But with a normal year of injuries, we’re going to be a force.”
