The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz - Hour 1: Country-Western Music

Episode Date: March 26, 2024

Amin is in the studio to discuss the Jontay Porter scandal with Dan and Greg Cote. The show continues to expand on the Shohei Ohtani scandal, and how betting scandals are being policed in a world where gambling is legal. Then, Tim Kurkjian joins the show in front of his fake background to continue the conversation about Shohei Ohtani. Also, he is starting a new podcast with his son, and Dan is very excited that he gets to share this time with his son the way he got to share Highly Questionable with Papi. Plus, Tim is really bad at technology and we bring out the Looks Like Game to make him giggle. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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please drink responsibly. Hi there, my name is Alameen Abdelmahmoud. I am the host of the CBC podcast, Commotion. You need to drop by, okay, because that's where we talk about all things pop culture. We talk about what people are watching, what people are listening to, like how the Smiths got on a Trump rally playlist, or how Elmo became the internet's therapist, or how DadTV got so darn popular?

Comotion with Alameen Abou Mahmoud, available now on Spotify. This is the Dan Lebatore Show with the StuGuts Podcast. I really do think we're sitting in the center of gambling normalization. Here comes a sort of chaos that can't be policed to sports. And I'm glad that Amin El-Hassan, who has worked in an NBA front office. It's being policed.

I mean, again, as a totally unbiased party on a show that is proudly presented by our friends over at DraftKings, this is it being policed! Where is this take, because you're not the only one guilty of it, where is this take coming from? That this is some out-of-control problem when we only find out about it when it's being controlled? Okay, I don't know what that sound was at the age it's just this is the process working I'm glad that Amin Elhassan is in town because he can walk us through what I believe is the process working that ends up making the story

that's in front of us on a Michael Porter brother I did not know exist until yesterday. That's how he should be mentioned by the way. Well he serves as an avatar for me on oh okay so whatever the gambling quote-unquote problem is gonna be that's gonna be the most overt of it we've got cash coming in on an under that is not just suspicious but guilty so I mean walk us through the mechanics of the business and everything happening as sports gets involved with gambling because this is the details of this are the most overt thing we've seen since the 1919 black sox scandals of all this guy did this he just went out with an eye and an eye ailment that no one

believes in because he can and doesn't even fake his way through fixing his numbers in this game. So I would say that Headache Smith at Arizona State in the 90s is bigger than this for sure because that was actually a guy who was really good and could impact lines and stuff like that. I would also agree with Mike that it's like saying, oh man, someone got caught robbing, like oh, we're not doing anything. It's like, well no, that's the whole point.

That's the point of policing is that there's a police that catches people doing things. It's not that it's going to be zero. And by the way, we're speaking from a very American point of view, because gambling has been integrated into European and other international sports for decades. Like the idea of having a sports book in your venue, that's normal in Europe. Here we're like, oh my God, the Wizards opened a sports book in their venue like this three

or four years ago and people fainted. But like just because it's new to us doesn't mean it's new. But we're repressed about our American sports stuff and so this is the this is the world coming to American sports and of course where there's going to be pearl clutching. What do you mean? This is where sportsmanship exists and amateurism and and this isn't where business is we're pure about our sports, respect our sports. So with regards to is gambling a problem, or not gambling a problem,

is this type of behavior a problem? I don't think so, because for the most part, what's the incentive for the inside man to go along with it, what's the incentive? Money. Money, right? So when you look at the players by and large, and I know Jontay Porter is a two-way guy, not making a gajillion dollars,

and more importantly, not having the kind of longevity that would indicate, oh man, if I just keep doing this, I'm gonna make a lot of money over the span of my career. He can end his career, but he could also make a million dollars in a night yeah but like that's not that doesn't move the needle right like so people say for instance rudy gobert was trying to insinuate that referees are in on this

it makes no sense for an nb a referee to be in on something like this because if you do a good job as an nb a referee your career is gonna be 10 15 20 years of just making this money and be and having a very well-to-do lifestyle right for most NBA players they're making the type of money that you're seeing a million dollars you think there's somebody out there who gave him a million dollars I'm just saying that on this kind of bet when you I thought the prop numbers on this, right?

You can only bet certain amounts right on prop So I would like to know what's true and what's not true about that being draft Kings biggest winner in a night Yeah You could game the system in a night if you're a player fixing it with a certain amount of money that would make it worth Michael Porter's brother. I didn't know about until last night to say I don't think they'll catch me doing this and I can make a few million dollars in a night. Well Calvin Ridley in terms of name recognition is generally an outlier and if you see like the alleged crime that he committed the volume isn't such but those are that typically the tier

player you go after in these. While many in our audience may not know it, over the last decade, close to 200 professional tennis players were implicated in a gambling ring, and they were the lower tier players because they were deemed the most corruptible. They're the most corruptible because they don't make money, right?

They're also the most expendable too. Like if you're gonna send a message, send a message with lower tier players where it's kinda like, hey, look what couldn't happen to you. Are you speaking to the Otani conspiracy theory? I've never heard of it. No, no, no, no. Free eBay by the way, but to your point, you said earlier, yeah, you can have a long career

as an NBA referee, but that doesn't mean you didn't have a bad night one night, and now you owe this bookie or somebody on your ass for this big amount of money. So it might behoove you to make a big bet tonight. You feel me? But I guess my thing is it's so easily detectable. I think like people know.

With a more legalized standard, yes. Like it's easily detectable. Like there's something happening here that's weird, right? Which is we saw it a couple weeks ago when the Temple basketball came. As they made a run, they were embroiled in this, hey, what is this very weird volume? So, because they can see the money coming in, right?

Same thing with this situation. We saw the money coming in. Same thing with Tim Donahue. Like we saw, and it was just his games. That was a smoking gun that that Netflix documentary never ever acknowledged. The only ones that had action were the ones that he ref. He was trying to let all these rest are doing it.

But when you look at the numbers, the only ones that had a bunch of action on it were the ones that he was repping because he was the one. I mean, if you're bringing us the perspective of Headache Smith, okay, a 90s basketball player who was a star player and gambling that way, where you've bought a star player. This seems to be like more easy, easier, guaranteed money

if you can get a prop under and tilt the scales to make an amount of money to be Draft King's biggest wager of the night. In one night, by buying one player who's willing to go out of a game with an eye injury, you can make more money and control your results a lot better than trying to bet on Headache Smith controlling an entire game.

I would argue, first of all, Headache was easier to get to because he was paid zero dollars as a collegiate basketball player versus John Tate Porter who's making some money, right? But at the end of the day, there are limits to how much you can put on props. There are limits, like when you say it was their most popular bed of the night,

that wasn't one person coming in but give me $12 million on John Tate Porter. No, you can't do it that way. That's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying. But you can bet. A lot of books limit. But you can bet an amount of money to make it a significant amount of money that can buy a fringe NBA player. I doubt that that can be a long-term thing.

It's just not worth the squeeze. You may see isolated incidents, and those bets typically have a volume that'll raise several flags. And I do think that while you mentioned the UK, it's so heavily regulated over there and it's taken several evolutions. And I think here in the United States, certain books here in the state of Florida, there there's a compact that states, if you go to that gambling platform, you can't bet college props. And there are different ways around this,

different evolutions of this. Books maybe make a stance. You can't bet unders, you can't take college props on certain books that have already made that stance depending on the bylaws on how they got legalized there. I think we'll ultimately get better and better with this stuff. Better with an E.

Yeah, well, even people betting by proxy, the data does not lie. A suspicious action on a game sticks out like a sore thumb to these entities, and they share that information immediately. I think that we're looking at it into it a lot deeper than it probably is. I think it's a bonehead move by a young man

who made a bad decision. I'm pretty sure, as an executive in the NBA, you've had a whole bunch of guys make bonehead moves over the years, I mean. Yeah, I mean, not a gambling style, but yes. Ah, damn, we almost got him. Yeah. This is awesome.

I was not familiar with your game, sir. That was, you almost got our guy. But if a young player did have a gambling problem, how would they have done it, I mean? I guess like, Jontay Porter? Allegedly. Allegedly, allegedly. But I just, because the other thing also is just like, it's the weirdest prop bet in the world,

like I wanna bet the unders on Jontay Porter. Like automatically DraftKings is about to be like. Tellers like who? No, yeah, like hold on for a second. But do we know how much money is involved with the bets? Like that part matters, I feel like. We can make it about nothing. But the detail that we know is that it was a single

biggest moneymaker in terms of prop action. Of that day. Of that day. And the red flag is, it's not just an over under on a prop bet, but the over under is so small. It's not an over under on a six and a half, it's an over under on a 0.5 or a 1.5. One other thing to that point Greg is if this were a sophisticated gambling

operation behind the scenes the the the move can't be okay this is what I'm gonna do I'm gonna start the game and then I'm gonna go oh I've got to go back to the I'm gonna go back to the line. This begs. I've got to go back to the, oh, I can't. This begs the question. If you were a gambler and you were in the NBA, you were getting away with it, how would you go with that? It's such a good question. It's such a good question.

Because this is the worst way. My tummy hurts or my eye hurts, what's worse than that? What's a lamer, more obvious way to fake your way out of a game than my eye hurts or my tummy hurts? Punch somebody. Just turn around and haul off and not, do the Draymond. Just choke somebody out 16 seconds into the game. But it's, okay, it's not a smart crime

because there are gonna be questions after the game, but it's less lame than my eye hurts. I think the bubbleguts one got me better. The eye hurt because apparently he has had an eye issue. So he was leaning on this, hey guys, remember that time I messed up my eye? Like it's still acting up. But to say, oh, that Kung Pao chicken doesn't agree with me.

Like that's kind of hilarious. What are your thoughts on bigger balls? In the NBA. Bigger balls in the NBA to mitigate the guys. I'm not going for this thing I understand anything but what he wants to fix the league, you know how in the WNBA They have smaller balls. Not fix it. Not fix it. All right in the NBA We're jacking up all these shots from way downtown And we can mitigate that by just making the ball a little bit bigger

So the likelihood that you make it because we're shooting the balls at historic clips right now, it goes down somewhat. And then people realize, let me get closer to this hoop, because this ball is a little bit bigger now. I think it's a terrible idea. What's your idea for fixing the game? Have you ever seen- Just trying to solve problems here.

You know that NBA players in the off-season work out with these things called medicine balls that are larger than a basketball and much heavier? Oh, that's it. I didn't even think about making it a medicine ball. Seems like they're playing practice there and they don't have an issue with it. Medicine balls don't dribble well though.

Not good bouncers, no. They're good for shooting though. Make it heavier. Make it bigger and heavier. Bigger balls, 2024. Bigger, heavier balls. I mean, what about my good idea? Limit each team to 10 three-point shots a game.

That way, you don't only limit threes. Hey, it's Mike. And first off, let me thank you. A lot of people have hit me up privately, curious about my fishtail palms and I just got some landscaping done and let me tell you they've never looked better. I've got light shining on them and now every night I go outside, sit on my patio, look at my fishtail palms and drink some Miller Lite. Yeah a lot has changed over the years. One thing that hasn't is the great taste of Miller Lite. Yeah a lot has changed over the years. One thing that hasn't is the great taste of Miller Lite. It was the original Lite beer and to this day it's still the

best one. Miller Lite has more of the taste that you want and less of the stuff that you don't. Oh sitting outside with my family letting the music play and sipping Miller Lite. That is the good stuff folks. That is what life's about. Times change, but you can always enjoy the great taste of Miller Lite. Ah, tastes like Miller time. To get Miller Lite delivered right to your door, visit MillerLite.com slash Dan, or you can pretty much find it anywhere that sells beer. Celebrate responsibly Miller Brewing Company Milwaukee, Wisconsin 96 calories per 12 ounces. Don Lebatard. Why are you so bad at this? Stugats. I can't answer that question.

It's a good one though. I've been thinking about it a lot. This is the Don Lebatard Show with the Stugats. [♪ music playing. Tense music playing. Tense music playing. Tense music playing. Tense music playing. Tense music playing. Tense music playing. Tense music playing. Tense music playing. Tense music playing. Tense music playing. Tense music playing. Tense music playing. Tense music playing. Tense music playing. Tense music playing. Tense music playing. Tense music playing. Tense music playing. Tense music playing. Tense music playing. Tense music playing. Tense music playing. Tense music playing. Tense music playing. Tense music playing. Tense music playing. Tense music playing. Tense music playing. Tense music playing. Tense music playing. Tense music playing. Tense music playing. Tense music playing. Tense music playing. Tense music playing. Tense music playing. Tense music playing. Tense music playing. Tense music playing. Tense music playing. Tense music playing. Tense music playing. Tense music playing. Tense music playing. Tense music playing. Tense music playing. Tense music playing. Tense music playing. Tense music playing. Tense music playing. Tense music playing. Tense music playing. Tense music playing. Tense music playing. Tense music playing. Tense music playing. Tense music playing. Tense music playing. Tense music playing. Tense music playing. Tense music playing. Tense music playing. Tense music playing. Tense music playing. Tense music playing. Tense music playing. Tense music playing. Tense music playing. Tense music playing. Tense music playing. Tense music playing. Tense music playing. Tense music playing. Tense music playing. Tense Adam Silver look like a test tube? So bad. He does look like a test tube if you. If he does. Tim, Tim, we had begun the segment there, Tim. I was, I had begun the segment with you, Tim, and you just walked off.

You're, you're rusty. Tim is rusty. So I will tell the audience to check out Tim's new podcast with his son Jeff. Is this a great game or what? New episodes every Tuesday. Wow, I thought that background. That is not a disc.

Wow, I thought that background was real. Okay, so let's talk about this for a second. Tim, you had no idea we started and now I love this camera angle. We just learned together that that camera angle is fake, Tim. Tim, we thought that was a real bookcase we were paying. The speakers. I gotta get one of those. Oh my God.

Tim, Tim, I think the camera needs to be in a slightly different place, although I like it better this way. Oh my God, we just all were paying no attention whatsoever. Tim, that's the fakest background I've ever seen. Look, it's moving. This is Tim. That's the fakest background. I've ever seen Look, it's moving People think this is real it's ridiculous and the reason I got up I didn't know we were on the air but

This is what you guys sent me as a present Looks like the white Tony Dungey you sent me as a present. Silver looks like the white Tony Dungey you sent me this. Yes we need. I love that his image froze on that. This man consistently makes me think about baseball makes me happy to think about baseball i associate him with baseball more than a great many players who have ever played the game and i'm sure that's one of his greatest legacy pride so tim kurchin is also a friend friend the show friend of mine and he has had an unspeakably hard time that he would never complain about publicly uh... at home because it to do so would be undignified but he is dealt with grief and loss and

stuff that really hurts and i was thrilled the other day when he called me and he told me that he was starting a podcast with his son jeff is this a great game or what new episodes are going to be every tuesday he is late to the podcast game his background is shitty and he doesn't know how technology works But for him to be able to do this with his son late in in his career Reminds me of what I was able to do with my father on television

And so I was just really happy for Tim that you will get to spend a day a week with your son talking baseball Because that sounds if you asked me how Tim Kirkshun would want his grandfatherly years to go if he had imagined them forty years ago what do you mean i get to talk baseball with my kid one day a week and they're gonna pay me for it right and that's exactly why i'm doing this dan and the reason i'm doing this because it's my son and i love him he's also and genius a magician with technology so i tweeted the other day

for like the first time in two years because I'm so bad at it, but he set up the whole tweet for me, which included video. I couldn't have done that in a million years. So he set it up for me on my phone and he said, dad, on Monday morning, all you have to do is press this button, post, and then you'll be on. Otherwise, the friends of mine said, dad, on Monday morning, all you have to do is press this button, post, and then you'll be on. Other one, because friends of mine said, how did you know how to do that? The answer is, I don't know how to do anything.

So he is helping me through that. I will provide baseball content, and he will provide content on all sorts of other things, since I only know about baseball and a little bit about basketball and nothing else. Let me explain something else to you, Kirch, and what your son will be able to do things since I only know about baseball and a little bit about basketball and nothing else. Let me explain something else to you, Kirch and what your son will be able to do is cash in on grandpa's brand in baseball from every angle because he simply knows how to use Twitter.

The crew here is laughing at you, Tim. Juju and Tony are laughing at you because you think he's a technological genius because he can clip something. Because he can type stuff on the tweet and then send it, I think he's a technological genius because he can clip something. Now you snitching, they ain't tell you. Because he can type stuff on the tweet and then send it, I think, to the technological genius part. Don't access to your bank accounts, you know what I mean, Tim? I'm just laughing at this man's background,

like what's behind this curtain that's so bad? Tim, it's not because your son's a genius, it's because you're a fool. I'm an idiot, I'm the first one to tell you that. I don't know anything, and he's in Country don't know anything and he's in country music talks and and he's thrown you know country i call it country western music until about three months ago when he finally said dad that's not what it's called anymore it's country music so i'm going to learn something about that among many things while we do the show so it's not just

going to be pure baseball me telling stories it's not just gonna be pure baseball me telling stories it's gonna be back and forth the in my son and hopefully i learned something from all the things that he knows that i know well hopefully jeff will learn something from our show because when it's called is this a great game or what this the name of it should be i'm going to take what's left of grandpa's uh... money or grandpa's knowledge or uh... that the he is going to use the's left of grandpa's uh... money or grandpa's knowledge or uh... that he is going to use the kerch and brand

to branch out in the podcast when you normally don't care about podcast certainly you don't listen to a man you don't know how to download them i don't know how to download them and don't know how to listen to them i don't know how to do anything and you're right i'm trying to help my son who by the way doesn't need any help. He's doing really well in Philadelphia as a morning talk show music country music host. I'm just doing this because it's something I always wanted to do. He's my son. We have great chemistry. We have great fun together and that's the only reason I'm doing it. If he

cashes in on me if we make any money on this he'd get that not me i don't care about that i want to get in the bidding i want to get in the bidding for this part is a lot of money from the s p n it's kind of just announcing and i'm this might be tampering but i'd like to get in on bidding on whatever it is this podcast becomes because one one of the episode you call me the other day you're giggling out the one time i put you and mike sure together microphones you talk for fifty straight minutes in a way on south beach sessions that people found delightful one of your

first podcast is going to be him and you just geeking out on the passion of baseball right people love listening to you on baseball and you're like a kid opening baseball cards when you talk to mike sure right and we open baseball cards on cards on several segments where they just open a card and my son says, all right, tell the story about this guy. Mike Schur was so great. I told him, we only need 20 to 30 minutes. We went 45.

We could have gone four hours and 45 minutes. And that's how great he was. It wasn't even, Dan, a question and answer period. It was a three-way conversation between three people who love baseball, two of us who are unhealthily addicted to the game. And Mike told me about three stories that I've never heard before.

And he's, I do this for a living, and he knows stuff that I don't know about baseball. It's embarrassing but it was so great. He told us a story where Manny Ramirez went to buy a motorcycle and he didn't think he could afford it because it cost ninety five thousand dollars. So the guy said Manny you're a major league player you can afford this and he said okay I'll pay for it now but I left my wallet at home and he looked at his buddy who was standing right next to him and said can I have 95 thousand dollars he thought he had it on him

that's one of a million stories that Mike Mike sure told that made me laugh out loud. Manny wore a $60 earring and didn't seem to know the value of money because he was in the neighborhood that I had just bought a home in very early in my career. The area was just growing out. It was just beginning. It was not expensive land or homes and he wanted to buy a house there for his family and he asked his agent, can I afford this house here? And his agent told him, Manny, you can afford the whole bleeping neighborhood. How do you not know?

How do you, but Tim, you've got all sorts of stories like that where I wanna get into the Otani stuff with you and I wanna get into some of the elements here of how much was Otani relying on his translator as like an all purpose person that he trusted with everything including his bank accounts uh... but i want to talk to you about the difficulties players have been transitioning over here because the excuse on otani can't be a simple as he

wasn't familiar with gambling rules and he doesn't know the difference between a draft king's and uh... and uh... and uh... you know a guy named manny who's running a syndicate like but what the the controversy is a weird one and i don't think i totally understand what he might be guilty of here right and i'm with you to dan i think we need to ask like a million more questions about this and it really hurt yesterday that no one was allowed to ask a question.

I will say, however, he was way more forthcoming than I thought he was going to be. He was angrier, more emotional, more passionate than I thought. I thought he was going to read a canned press release saying, hey, I can't talk about this. We'll talk about it at the proper time. There's an investigation going on. Instead, there were times I felt like he looked up from his script and actually spoke to us. And I think he deserves certainly a little bit of credit for doing that. Now however, we still have a zillion questions like, how could he not know that $4.5 million

was taken from him how could he not know that his interpreter was doing something like this maybe rich people do this all the time these are the questions i still need to know but i will tell you for the most part and maybe this is my nature i'd believed most of what he said yesterday and other told me i am completely wrong about that but i don't know how he could not know what was going on and those are the questions that need to be answered here's a problem with you kirk shannon your eternal niceness everyone can get

away with everything because the whole steroid thing happened right under your nose your journalist in the whole thing happened right under your nose here like i believe otani the truth is i do too but they can get away with anything on right under your nose. You're a journalist and the whole thing happened right under your nose. You're like, I believe Ohtani. The truth is I do too, but they can get away with anything on your watch, Kirkjian, because you love the sport too much. Look at him, look how disappointed he is with the, he's, are you mad at me?

Did I just actually enrage Tim Kirkjian? No, it happened under your nose too. Tell his ass. It's happened under everyone's nose. The best investigative reporters in the game didn't know this was going on. Look, I'm not going to make any excuses for me. I missed the story badly as we all did. But you can't just be covering the game, asking a baseball question and then say, oh, are you doing steroids? It just doesn't work that way when they brought

in a mark fainter rwanda in and he went undercover for two years that's how you get the story that's how you figure this out no excuses i missed it i miss a lot of things that's the way it works i've got a two-prong question though because you know more about history and perspective in this realm than the great many of the people who cover anything never mind just baseball the weirdness of what happened with an interview that then look like a call book cover up that then becomes massive theft and makes all of this so much worse

because you've got a disavowed interview can you please take me through where this ranks for you in terms of weird scandal at least in part because of that weird interview situation? Yeah, this is the strangest most confusing most confounding story that I think I've seen in the 44 years that I have covered and mainly because a We're talking about not just the biggest star in the game, we're talking about the biggest athletic star in sports today and one of the greatest stars in the history of baseball. And Dan, I have never seen a story change as quickly as it did in a 24-hour period from,

this is what Shohei did, Oh, no, it's a massive Theft that's what confused me and that's why we're on this and why we need to get to the bottom of it with a million More questions, but I know I have slapped my forehead a hundred times since this story came out What happened here who can explain this and we still don't have an explanation, but I still think we got at least a little bit of clarity yesterday that we didn't have the day before. One of the big things, Tim, yesterday that confused me, I guess, was kind of when he was telling the story, and if you go by the timeline

of how things have been going on, right? Because the fact that I said it was going on in two different countries at the same time, right? In different time zones or whatever. But I think at one point he said yesterday, I didn't really think anything was amiss until after Ipe was talking to the entire clubhouse, he was saying it in English,

and I realized something's off here. The thing that I thought was a little strange about that is by the timeline, unless I'm wrong, at that point Ipe had already conducted the interview, it had been disavowed and like, I just don't understand how no one else in Shohei's camp said anything to him, like, hey, something's going on here. It took until after that conversation in the clubhouse

and then a one-on-one conversation, the two of them allegedly had in a hotel where he said, okay, like something's actually on. Like, how did how was no one else in his team kind of telling him, hey, something's happening here. You should be paying attention to this. Yes, I'm with you, Billy. Someone should have prepped him before the interpreter addressed the team and said, here's what he's planning on saying in English. We will translate for you if you don't understand

But you know show hey understands more English than most people think that goes for each row and a lot of other guys who? Come over they just choose not to speak because it can get them in more trouble than good But I'm with you on that that that's one of many things that I can't comprehend How is he hearing this for the first time? When they're having this club out meeting and he's standing there Listening to what the guy is saying someone should have prepped him in advance Don LeBattard punctuate this segment with what is your strike three call strike one would be Strike and then you stand up and you give a good point to the right stoo guts

That's same for strike two, but strike three you get down low, you got your hands behind the catcher, alright? The right arm goes up into the air. Hyah! And then you finish it with a punch. The right arm flings way up into the air. Hyah! Hyah! I wish I could see that.

It's terrible audio's great. This is the Dunn Lebatardt Show with its two gods. Tim, I'm from the hood and this is a simple case to me. I see it with my eyes closed. I got a homeboy, he took a charge from my homeboy. He has a lot of money. He said, if I ever get messed up, will you take this charge from me? And he took the charge on the chin. He got two years left on his sentence. I think that E-Pay is just a stand-up friend and he's

getting too much piled on him right now and they had this already planned out, but this is the role he signed up for. What do you say to that, brother Tim? Allegedly. Allegedly. Well, as we know in the NBA, which I love by the way, there's the difference between a block and a charge is really difficult to ascertain. I think this is a block. This wasn't necessarily a charge. We have to believe one of these two guys at this point, and I am inclined to believe

Shohei. Now, do I believe everything that he said? Well, I find that hard to believe everything. When he came out and said, this is an absolute lie, he better be right about that. I never bet on baseball. I never placed a bet. Look, the federal government knows all about this inquiry or they will.

If he lied, his career is going to be over one way or another. So I just can't believe he would come out and tell a bald-faced lie when already the feds are on this. That's the way it was explained to me yesterday by a lawyer who didn't necessarily believe everything that Shohei said, but said he was well prepared for that interview or that statement that he made. That's the part of this, Tim, that I think is confusing, right? Because I do not believe that an MLB investigation is gonna turn up anything that's going to have

actual implications for Shohei. Just because I think that this is a different time than Pete Rose, for example, right? Where baseball is now a business, and if your biggest star is putting your business in Pete Rose, for example, right? Where like baseball is now a business and if your biggest star is putting your business in a position, are you gonna side with business or integrity, right? So like they can say, oh, we looked, nothing turned up,

but when you start lying in a federal investigation, you need to see it through. Like he has to now say, this man stole four and a half million dollars from me and he has to send his friend to jail or he's going to be in trouble. It felt like what happened was, and this is just a theory, hey, you're in trouble here, you know, I got you.

Oh wait, no, that might be illegal what you're doing. We're flipping it on you. But now he has to kind of ride this entire thing out, correct? Allegedly. Allegedly. Allegedly. Four million dollars is nothing for me. Tim, you can speak to this part of it as well

because you have the history of knowing what these translators do while otani's life is that the strangest in all of baseball uh... in terms of what surrounds him media members just following him everywhere and the translator acting in some cases as a twenty four-hour concierge who introduces you to a different culture so that you can concentrate on your business. Can you speak to how unique this relationship is and whether or not a friend would just take the hit on something like that because-

It's concierge. I'm just- I think you're talking about traffic cones. Important accent over the oh. Concierge. Concierge. No, it's concierge. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, his players he opened up bank accounts for them he handled their utility bills

He went to the cleaners for them these guys come over here and they need help on everything and the FAs of the world help in every single way and But I still don't understand how someone could be this helpful and still take Allegedly take this kind of money and no one knows about it. It that's the part that I need questions answered Tim what if in my most utopian naive form I was to present to you the following the following idea It's really hard for Otani to be great at baseball and transition culturally while he did both of those things well is his translator somebody like a legion of people in his economy who exists to simply help him with everything

so that he doesn't have to be a grown adult who learns america but just gets to be sports star who knows baseball is it possible that show a otani only crime here is being super super trusting of somebody who had a gambling problem and just covered in four million dollars because currency doesn't even matter to him he makes so much money right he made a hundred million dollars last year dan with endorsements and salary and yes

i think that that his biggest mistake here is he was too trusting and he was too naive and he didn't know what was going on when he should have. But I think the way I think you presented it perfectly. He comes here and says, I'm going to be the most remarkable baseball player ever. But the only way to do that is to be completely regimented when I get to the ballpark and have everything already done for me when I get here so I can be the most disciplined player in the world so I can pitch and hit like nobody else in the history of baseball. I think he gave it to his interpreter and said you need to handle the rest of this.

I don't have time for this. I have to sleep 10 hours a day. I have to get to the ballpark. I have to hit. I gotta throw a bullpen. And I think that's what happened here. That's my guess. We're all guessing still. But yes, is that plausible? Yes, I think it is. Not only that, though, Tim, you're uniquely qualified to talk about this part of it. And this is where I think you can offer an insight to how it is something this uh... strange and stupid can happen ten year the only person that i know who has the words in the respect of history who can explain to us how hard it is to do o'connie is doing the greatness of that

how it is you can't do that part-time because you're just really good at baseball that you that how hard it is for him to master and excel at that must require a regimen that us have that we have no understanding of and would require a team of people to make him a baseball playing toddler who is great but might not know how to exist in this country around fame and temptation right Dan you're right he throws a baseball hundred miles an hour she hits baseball's thrown at him at a hundred miles an hour and his exit velocity not my favorite term is well

over a hundred miles an hour when he really swings the bat well and he can fly on the basis so he recognizes that nobody else can do this but the only way that he can do all of those things is to give everything else in his life to somebody else and it you know it angered some of the angel writers in his six years there that he rarely spoke to them he would only speak after games in which he pitches. Well he did that because he needed to keep his focus certainly not defending him but if you're gonna do something that no one games in which he pitches. Well, he did that because he needed to keep his focus. Certainly not defending him. But if you're going to do something that no one else in the history

of baseball has done, you're going to have to go out about things a little differently. You can't just do everything by yourself. You need someone to do virtually everything for you away from the field. But we're also like infantilizing him, right? Like we're kind of like, we like him, so we're giving him passes on a lot of things. Like he's, he had a wife that no one knew existed. He had a dog that he just refused to tell anyone

of the dogs, like he likes to be secretive too. Like it's capable, he just likes to be a private guy, not he can't focus on anything but baseball. He could just be really good at baseball. Well, what's most probable here what is most probable is it your your theory that there's total innocence or billy's cynicism that stop making this a child who doesn't know anything i'm just speaking to how hard i'd have it in japan

like if you put me in japan right now fifty five if i could get something out of a vending machine i'd be Mike Mike what? Like if you put me in Japan, I'm 30 years older than Otani and I'm not great at things that he's great I've got enough problems in this country The show I need Major League Baseball because it feels like Major League Baseball needs show hey more than he needs Major League Baseball bar Because it feels like Major League Baseball needs Shohei more than he needs Major League Baseball. Bar. Look, Shohei needs Major League Baseball.

All he's ever wanted to do is be the greatest player who's ever played, and he needs Major League Baseball to do that. And I'm with you, Dan. I'm 40 years older than him. And I went to a restaurant bar the other day where I had to order something, a beer, off the menu, and I couldn't order it because it had one of those little things in the right hand corner that I had to put my phone up next to. I didn't even know how to order a beer at a restaurant. I had to ask the waitress, how does this work? She said, well, put your phone up. I said, can you just get me a Miller Lite? Cause I don't know how to do this.

96 calories. I can't do this stuff in our country Japan and then I'm not saying he's totally innocent. I'm just saying What is it ladies and gentlemen, if it look like a duck and it quack like a duck, what is it ladies and gentlemen? It's a duck. A damn duck. It is what he said, I heard it that way too. You guys hear me now? Yeah, sorry about that.

All right, I don't think that was my fault for once. It's never your fault, brother Tim. Yeah, well said, Juju, but it was kind of his fault. It was the fault of your Zoom, but it was it was kind of his fault. It was the fault of your Zoom, but it's nice to have you back here Tim and we just interpreted what you said because you cut out right when you were saying what the punchline was to all of this. You were going to have your dismounting point and then it got garbled and the ending of this segment got ruined. So if you just want to say it again that's fine or we ended the segment just fine moments ago without much of your help at all?

All right. We'll end it the way that you ended it, and we'll do whatever you want from here. And if I'm done, I'm done. Just tell me what you want me to do. Okay. Well, what I want you to do is to tell the audience why they should listen to your new podcast because it is an honor, I told you this earlier this week, to see you doing this with your son jeff into the degree you wish to share with our audience which cares about you deeply about how hard your last ten

years have been and why did you might have an appreciation for this project that you didn't have ten years ago i'd like my audience to know that they should ship they should support is this a great game or what because tim is insistent about doing some things he's learned later in life that he hasn't learned earlier in life because he's been chasing a baseball around all his life and he doesn't know how to do anything he doesn't know what a barcode is right in a bar i don't know what a barcode is um i'm doing a podcast with my son because i've always wanted to do this. And I hesitate to say this, Dan,

but we're going to try to make it a little bit like your show. It's going to be a bit of a pirate ship, except we're going to try to make people comfortable on it, as opposed to uncomfortable. For instance, we have Chris Young, the general manager of the Rangers, as our guest on our second episode.

And instead of asking him, can the Rangers repeat or when is Mack Scherzer coming back? We asked him about the free throw shooting contest that he got in when he was playing for the Padres. Chris Young of course played basketball at Princeton. He told a hilarious story. I asked him about being the tallest guy ever to hit a triple in a major league game. He told us that story. We were laughing out loud. After that we have John Smoltz on and instead of asking him, you know, tell us how great Greg Maddux was, we asked him about golf because it's running during Masters week. So he explained his 11

holes in one. He explained pitching to Tiger Woods in a simulated game that I happened to be at 15 years ago He explained how he was five shots ahead behind Jeff Frank or going into 18 his dear friend and beat him By five shots. He took a four and and Frank or took a 14. Those are the kind of questions We're asking this is going to be joyful. This is going to be playful. There's no heavy lifting There's no breaking news. We're gonna have a good time with two Two people who love the game and who love each other as corny as that sounds. We love you, too You know this let's see if we give them a couple of these on the way out. Are you guys ready? Are you ready?

Are you guys ready? The field's, are you ready? Cause guys- Wonderful energy by you though. Well, especially with the setup. The reason I'm trying to build up, but lower expectations as well. Those are difficult things to do together. Does Baker Mayfield look, hold on a second.

Wait, we're off to a good start though. Does Baker Mayfield look like the bartender at a TGI Fridays who doesn't know how to work the TV remote when you ask to change the channel? Does Gardner Minshew look like he doesn't count the days but rather makes the days count? Does Bruce Pearl look like he takes his son-in-law's side during the divorce from his daughter? Does Brian Dayball look like Kurt Angle's brother Bert Angle? That's good. That is the good one.

That last one is good. It's true. He does. He does. He looks like Bert Angle. He's good, he does, he does. He looks like Bert Engel. He loses every time he wears beige shorts. He's not a, yeah, Bert Engel's no good.

It's damn true. Yeah, Dan, before I go, just tell me one more. No wait, Adnan called me the other day. Please give me the Adnan looks like, please. Okay, I don't know if I could do it off the top of my head, but Adnan Verk looks like, please. I don't know if I could do it off the top of my head, but Adnan Virk looks like he's the man standing on the shoreline when James Bond crawls to shore and says, welcome to Tangier, Mr. Bond.

And remember I did a game with him on national TV and Aaron Judge hit a homer and that was his homer on call. Welcome to J and Cheer. All of your stupid shows. So bad. It was so funny. We love seeing you, buddy. And again, check out Tim's new podcast.

Make it every time we tell you to do this, you make these things climb right up the charts. This is going to be a nice project and it's going to be a joyful one that Tim gets to do with his son, Jeff. Is this a great thing? Every time we tell you to do this, you make these things climb right up the charts. This is going to be a nice project, and it's going to be a joyful one that Tim gets to do with his son, Jeff. Is this a great game or what? New episodes every Tuesday. Tim, we love you, buddy, and we miss you. You can't be on enough.

All right. Love you guys. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it, and thanks for the support. We do need to start a segment with Tim where we just ask him things he can't do around the house. It's going gonna be eternally funny. Love you, brother. Hey, it's Mike and

First off, let me thank you. A lot of people have hit me up privately curious about my fishtail palms and I just got some landscaping done and let me tell you they've never looked better. I've got light shining on them and now every night I go outside, sit on my patio, look at my fishtail palms and drink some Miller Lite. Yeah, a lot has changed over the years. One thing that hasn't is the great taste of Miller Lite. It was the original light beer. And to this day, it's still the best one.

Miller Lite has more of the taste that you want and less of the stuff that you don't. Oh, sitting outside with my family, letting the music play, and sipping Miller Lite. That is the good stuff folks. That is what life's about. Times change. But you can always enjoy the great taste of Miller Lite. Tastes like Miller time.

To get Miller Lite delivered right to your door, visit MillerLite.com slash Dan. Or you can pretty much find it anywhere that sells beer. Celebrate responsibly Miller Brewing Company Milwaukee, Wisconsin 96 calories per 12 ounces.