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00:00 (upbeat music)
00:03 - We got Matt Lutovsky in the house
00:04 to sort of parse through all of the different stories
00:07 that we've had over the last 24, 48 hours
00:10 as far as some of these indiscretions
00:12 in Major League Baseball,
00:13 see how they potentially affect the future.
00:16 Also, this funny story,
00:18 honestly a funny story in the NBA, I think,
00:20 I don't know, maybe you guys don't think so.
00:21 Let's bring in Matt,
00:22 we'll get his certainly opinion on some of these.
00:25 Matt, let's start with the Shohei Otani story.
00:28 It is now over.
00:30 I got a statement in my email yesterday out of nowhere
00:33 from one of Otani's representatives,
00:35 so I'm assuming that's it.
00:36 Dodgers released a statement too.
00:37 What's crazy to me,
00:40 Matt, we have seen so many other stories
00:43 and so many other investigations take years.
00:46 How in the world did they get this open and shut
00:48 in two months?
00:50 - Yeah, that's a great question.
00:51 I remember when this was originally developing
00:54 and I thought, man, this is gonna be basically
00:56 what you said, this is gonna go on for a while,
00:58 we're gonna get twists, turns.
01:00 He said, he said, and here we are, early June,
01:04 case closed, nothing to see here, moving on,
01:08 stop asking questions, stop looking into this.
01:11 And I mean, it sounds like it is, certainly,
01:14 with him, he pleaded guilty
01:16 and it seems like that's that.
01:18 In Major League Baseball's concluded,
01:20 Shohei had nothing to do with it.
01:22 I still think there might be more we find out
01:25 here and there, some drips and drops,
01:28 but yeah, it's pretty crazy.
01:30 And especially when you look at the sheer amount
01:33 of bets he put into play and his wins
01:35 and his losses are staggering.
01:37 And you just think, well, at some point,
01:40 Shohei Ohtani had to know something was up,
01:43 even if someone else was managing his money
01:46 and this guy was very good at developing his sneaky plan,
01:51 but apparently not.
01:52 And apparently this is what went down.
01:54 And I guess we're all gonna move on
01:57 'cause the Dodgers told us to move on,
01:59 Major League Baseball told us to move on,
02:01 the courts told us to move on.
02:03 And I guess the good news is we have enough other cases
02:06 to move on to, because it seems like
02:08 there's a new one every day,
02:09 at least when it comes to betting indiscretions
02:11 by a professional athlete.
02:14 - Yeah, we sort of see it the same way here.
02:16 And to me, as I've said on the early line this morning,
02:18 and I've said constantly, on any level
02:21 in this day and age of technology,
02:24 and whatever banking app you use to think
02:27 that Ohtani would never log on to his app
02:31 to see that $500,000 was removed from his account.
02:35 And then it happened again.
02:36 (laughs)
02:37 It happened again and I had no idea.
02:40 I don't know.
02:40 - Or get an alert, something.
02:42 (laughs)
02:43 - No alert.
02:45 You know, you set the alert.
02:45 All right, let's set it to over 500, 599,000.
02:49 That's the only thing I'm interested in.
02:51 When that goes, then tell me.
02:52 So I know we're being cynical here,
02:54 but you and I see it the same way.
02:56 Okay, so speaking of cynical,
02:59 the way that a lot of people are viewing this player
03:01 that is now banned for life, Tuca Pitamarcano,
03:06 the cynical comments are this guy won 4% of his bets.
03:09 Like, what is he doing?
03:10 He threw his whole baseball career away
03:13 to be a horrible gambler.
03:16 My gosh, like this is just, I mean, to me,
03:18 that's a bigger story, I think,
03:20 for some of these players out there.
03:21 Like, you even had access to sort of know
03:24 what your team potentially could throw out there
03:26 in terms of a starting lineup every day,
03:28 and pitchers, and maybe who's available, and all that,
03:31 and you still couldn't even win.
03:33 So why do this?
03:34 I don't get why this keeps happening, Matt.
03:37 - Yeah, I know, and it's like,
03:39 you wanna see the bets at that point.
03:40 Was he just betting on crazy things?
03:42 Like, was he going for wild parlays
03:45 and just going for something big,
03:47 trying to strike it rich on one big bet?
03:50 I don't know.
03:51 I am fascinated by it,
03:52 because you originally hear the story,
03:54 you go, okay, guy bet on baseball.
03:56 That's not cool, don't do that.
03:58 But you at least kind of get it.
04:00 You're in the sport, you're not playing,
04:02 you know, he's on the DL, he's gonna make some bets.
04:05 He thinks he has insider knowledge.
04:06 And then you see that winning percentage,
04:08 and you're like, are you kidding me?
04:09 Like, I could do better than that.
04:11 What's going on here?
04:12 So it's a very strange story,
04:14 and I almost feel bad for him,
04:17 'cause he didn't put that much money into play.
04:21 You know, at least comparatively
04:22 to some other stories we've heard.
04:24 And he didn't do well.
04:25 And like you said, he threw away,
04:27 you know, I don't know how much longer his career had,
04:29 at least at the major league level,
04:31 but nonetheless, he was a young guy.
04:33 And to see this is just kind of unfortunate and foolish.
04:37 And yeah, it just leads to more questions, I think.
04:40 I wanna see these bets.
04:41 I wanna know what he was betting on,
04:43 because staggeringly low winning percentage.
04:47 - Yeah, it's not even the word for it, under 10%.
04:50 I mean, you're right.
04:50 He probably was betting like, I don't know,
04:53 25 to one that 20 runs are scored tonight.
04:56 And he did it like every day.
04:57 You know, it was like,
04:58 the only thing I could come up with there.
05:00 All right, so we've seen stuff like this in the movies.
05:03 Guy trying to leave the country,
05:06 get out of town, gotta pay some people back.
05:09 I'm being accused of something.
05:11 I think that this guy who was helping Jonte Porter,
05:14 allegedly, on some of his wagers,
05:17 must have caught wind that they were coming after him.
05:19 There's no other reason, Matt, for this guy to get caught.
05:23 You know, whether or not he was on a list of some kind
05:25 still remains to be seen.
05:26 I don't know if they were trying to find him,
05:27 but you don't go to the airport with a duffel bag of cash
05:31 and a one-way ticket,
05:32 unless you plan on never coming back, correct?
05:35 - Yeah, I would think so.
05:36 You know, three cell phones, that's always a tip off.
05:40 You know, anytime people have a lot of devices.
05:43 It's just a weird story for sure.
05:46 And yeah, it's just one of those things.
05:48 I think you said it before.
05:49 It's like you see in the movies.
05:50 And I think we're at the stage in the movie
05:53 where the investigators are trying to get someone
05:56 to flip on the other person.
05:58 And it just feels like that's where we're at.
06:00 But I was reading a little more into that story
06:02 and in the cell phone messages there, in the text.
06:04 They had, I think it was Jonte Porter who said,
06:06 "Hey, is this gonna be one of those Rico things?"
06:09 And I was like, "Well, that's not what criminals do.
06:11 You don't text each other the actual name of the crime
06:14 and put it out there in print."
06:16 So yeah, this wasn't a great situation
06:18 for everyone involved.
06:20 And that was another situation where you just go,
06:22 "Man, I know Jonte Porter wasn't that good,
06:23 but you just threw away your whole career."
06:26 And at least though, he amassed some pretty sizable debts.
06:30 And you think, "Oh, just ask your brother.
06:32 He just signed a hundred and some million dollar contract."
06:35 But you know, it didn't quite work that way.
06:38 - No, too proud to ask, I guess.
06:40 Oh, we got a minute left.
06:40 Do you think Brandon Aiu gets extended?
06:42 Do you think that ends up happening, Matt?
06:44 He's like sort of in that,
06:45 not the top, not the bottom category.
06:47 - Yeah, I think he wants big money.
06:50 And you know, the 49ers let a bunch of other receivers
06:53 sign for a good amount of money.
06:55 It's a little weird to me that they are re-upping
06:57 a lot of guys before they take care of him.
07:00 But yeah, I think this one's gonna play out for a while
07:02 and we'll see where it's at,
07:04 but you know, closer to the end of summer.
07:06 - All right, Matt, great to see you.
07:07 Thanks for coming on.
07:09 - All right, thank you.
07:10 (upbeat music)
07:12 (bells chiming)