In many ways, the championship game of the Nippon Club’s 40th annual President Cup baseball tournament was no different from a big game in any other Sunday league. Men who might wear coats and ties working as bankers, accountants and engineers during the week put on different uniforms, playing before a few dozen friends and relatives in the shadow of the concrete train trestles on Randalls Island.

A third baseman wore a clunky knee brace. Other players had paunches and receding hairlines. A number of others dived, rolled or tumbled in the dirt — intentionally or not — in pursuit of the championship trophy.

What made this game different was the man at the center of it: Hideki Matsui.

Matsui, 41, a retired Yankees star outfielder and a revered figure in Japan, was among the weekend hackers and seemed to be having the time of his life.

Wearing his familiar No. 55, he was the starting pitcher and cleanup hitter for Team Matsui, and to offer himself a challenge — and the competition a handicap — he batted right-handed.