What An Opening Day Right?

Yesterday I said baseball is gonna baseball, and that was before I even knew how hard baseball was gonna baseball by the end of the day. What an Opening Day right? 

Who knew the first game of the season and the debut of the most famous player in sport, happening at the asscrack of dawn, halfway around the world, was just the appetizer? Who knew the main course would be that most famous player getting caught up in a sports gambling SCANDAL with his interpreter?

Even for baseball, that was one hell of a trainwreck day for baseball. And even for Shohei, this is one hell of an Opening Day stat line: two hits, an RBI, one $4.5 mil gambling controversy and one interpreter and supposed best friend bleep canned.

Look, I don’t know what exactly happened here. I’m not gonna act like I know what exactly happened here. Like the vast majority of social media is acting like they know exactly what happened here. But I have a brain, and a nose and we're all smelling and thinking the same thing right now. We all know that this reeks. This is sketchy as hell.

That’s what happens when you dramatically change your story the way this story dramatically changed as soon as Shohei's lawyers got involved. People find that suspicious. I find it suspicious. For obvious reasons.

I find it incredibly suspicious that initially, Ippei sat down with ESPN, in an interview reportedly coordinated by a Shohei spokesman, and told them that Shohei covered his illegal gambling debts. Ippei said he made the bets, and he ran up a $4-plus million debt with an illegal bookmaker, and Shohei offered to help his friend and pay down the debt. That's what Ippei initially told ESPN and then Ippei reportedly stood in front of the Dodgers in the locker room in South Korea after the game yesterday and told them all that same story. 

Then all of a sudden, that story was disavowed by that same Shohei spokesman who set it up the ESPN interview in the first place, and then that spokesman referred us to this statement from Shohei’s lawyers:

"In the course of responding to recent media inquiries, we discovered that Shohei has been the victim of a massive theft, and we are turning the matter over to the authorities." 

UHHHH OHHHHH. I’m not even sure what exactly I’m UHHH OHHH’ing. I just know that it all deserves the slowest Carl Lewis you have, Alvie. UHHHHH OHHHHH.

Does it seem like Shohei is actually “the victim of a massive theft?” Ehhh. It seems like Shohei transferred money, lots of it, to an illegal bookmaking operation that is under federal investigation… and that’s pretty much all we actually know in terms of fact. The rest is speculation and finger pointing and possibly scapegoating and covering up. Possibly.

What we know for sure is bad enough for everyone involved. And obviously, it’s even worse, much worse, way worse, if Shohei directed these bets and Shohei just ran his best bud through the wood chipper. And it's even worse still if any of those bets were placed on baseball games. Then it's catastrophic. Then it's nuclear.

Ippei and other sources have repeatedly said across multiple media outlets that Shohei had no involvement in the betting and that none of the bets were on baseball. Somebody had a gambling problem, but that somebody didn't bet on the one thing they had inside information on and the best chance of winning. Instead, that somebody just lost a ton of other bets on other sports and kept digging that hole to the tune of a $4.5 mil debt. 

That's what we're supposed to believe, it's just pretty hard to believe. And it's pretty hard to believe that it was all Ippei and that Shohei was just bailing out his buddy. And that neither of them realized that wiring that money constituted a crime. 

We're talking about the most careful dude ever. The most careful dude ever being unbelievably sloppy. This dude's entire career and public image have been meticulously choreographed, just so his whole career could hop off the rails on day 1 as a Dodger, because he and his interpreter didn't realize it was illegal to bet with a bookmaker in California. Again, it's all hard to believe.

With all that said, I’m in no rush to proclaim that Shohei is Cris Carter’s biggest fan. Or that Shohei studies Cris Carter’s philosophy on life. That Shohei not only attends Cris Carter rookie seminars but shows up with a pen and paper and takes copious notes. What I’m not saying is that Shohei has himself a fall guy, and now that fall guy is taking the fall. Because I don't know that for sure.

But the word I will use is the word SKETCHY. Because this is SKETCHY as hell. And you don’t have to be a calculus wizard to tell that the math here isn’t mathing. Something stinks and something isn’t adding up. 

The situation is so sketchy that the high court of social media has already ruled and their ruling is, this dude guilty as hell. They’re saying Shohei clearly gambled… and Ippei’d the price. They’re calling this dude Pete Rose! People are talking about lifetime bans as if Shohei obviously made the bets and obviously bet on baseball. 

When as far as we know, there were no bets placed on baseball games. Because Ippei has repeated it multiple times. He said it so many times it makes you wonder. But according to Ippei, the bets were only on international soccer, the NBA, the NFL and college football.

Is it hard to believe that the most meticulous, careful, low key dude ever is actually a raging football-betting degenerate? Yeah, it is. And is it crazy to think that a raging degenerate would also defer 97% of the fortune headed his way for a decade? Doesn’t exactly fit the raging degenerate profile, does it?

It all SEEMS unlikely and it all SEEMS out of character but like I always say, we don’t really know these guys. And the thing about THIS particular guy is that we really don’t know ANYTHING about THIS particular guy. We don’t really know anyone, but we know less about this guy than anyone. The Dodgers didn’t even know he was married. The guy wouldn't even tell us the name of his dog.

The only good news in any of this for Shohei and the Dodgers is that as of this morning, according to reports, he is not under league investigation. And also, no federal authorities have reached out to Shohei, Ippei or the league, as far as we know. Which is pretty damn lucky considering the only real information we know for sure in this case is that Shohei’s account wired at least two $500k transactions to the account of an illegal bookmaker. And obviously that doesn’t just violate MLB rules, it violates the law.

It's such a shame because this could have all been so easily avoided. Illegal California bookmaker, psht please, what are you guys thinking about? Just open a Prize Picks account... Duh. Daily fantasy dude. 

Instead of racking up over 4 mil in debt to a bookie, you could have just played more or less on Prize Picks. Dude, Shohei ERRR I mean Ippei, it's so simple, all you have to do is pick more or less. It's just you and your picks, no sharks, no crazy leagues and most importantly NO FEDS.