Why Nick Wright believes Shohei Ohtani is a VICTIM amid gambling scandal | Colin Cowherd Podcast

It’s good to know there is at least one decent journalist in the US. Respect to you. Now the 36 page affidavit came out and Shohei proved innocent with the undeniable evidence. Journalists need to be responsible for whatever comes out of their mouth/pen. All those so-called journalists who made unfounded accusations against Shohei should face the music now.

Feel so bad Ohtani, he found out during a team meeting. cant imagine how feels.

Ohtani was odd even for a normal athlete standard since Japan pro days. He is completely indifferent to money. All his earnings he left to his parents to manage and was getting 1K allowance (which he never managed to use up) He never goes out according to his teammates, no night clubbing, shopping, buying blings..no alcohol, no smoking. He goes home eats and sleeps a lot. When he is awake he trains or is in games, That’s his routine. Angels teammates has tried to get him to join them for poker nights, which he always declined and went home. While Ippei joined them and in one of those nights he met this bookie. Trevor Plouff also said, this is very common. He has seen many players who have no idea about their money and it’s handled by assistant or someone. K.Kojima, interpreter for Mets/Giants said this is plausible since he also took care of the finances of players. Ippei has a long liking for gambling, already known in Fighters time by staffs. Though people get surprised he racked up such debt. Further, Ippei was a close confidant and supporter more than interpreter for Ohtani when he took the step to move to America alone. Ohtani’s paid 1,5M to Ippei to handle all his shopping, bills, sponsor contacts, inquiries, driving, and also gave him access to an account he had allocated for donations to charities with 10M. Nick is correct. Ohtani is so busy and have so many engagements that compare with normal people who manage and have every transaction going to SMS messaging, probably wasn’t feasible. Ohtani made 130M just in endorsements for the past 20 month. And he has been making money since his NPB days in endorsements and engagements though he tries to keep them under control not to disturb his baseball.

I'm Not a detective so i just have 2 choices to believe in: 1. Believe Ohtani who has a very good track record or. 2. Believe random rumors in the internet? I'll go with believing Ohtani's credibility....

The only two guys in the media that got it right. As a fan of Ohtani its refreshing to hear you two not pass judgment on him so quickly like most idiots in sport media. Namely: SAS, Rich, Shannon and others. Thank you

C'mon! Ohtani is not going to use his OWN account, with his OWN name on it, to pay off an illegal bookie. He knows everyone watches him, wants to know what he does, etc. His interpreter was more than just his interperter. He had an seperate account, with Ohtani's name and permission to use, for conducting personal purchase, payment of bills, etc. Money went into this account every month, for the course of several years, and Ippei made the debt transactions 9 times, without Ohtani's knowledge. Ohtani's biggest crime was trusting this guy and now he is paying for it with this "guilty until proven innocent" bannana.

Finally! A reasonable person!!!

I went months thinking I was paying for spotify student but instead I was paying full price spotify premium... I didn't notice so basically the same thing 😹

Darvish believed ohtani too because he was explained by him in seoul before game two!! Exactly same explanation he made a statement

I’m not saying he’s innocent, but I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around someone who deferred 680 million of his contract money, worked his ass off to be the best player in the world and has a whole nation on his back, to do something like this. I just can’t see it.

Ippei Mizuhara had Power of Attorney over an account with 10 million dollars in it -- a charity account which Ohtani hardly ever paid attention to. The Japanese media has been reporting this FOR FOUR SOLID DAYS! The Japanese media actually took the time to contact the (Japanese) banks and confirmed that Shohei had signed over Power of Attorney to Ippei. This is OLD NEWS and yet a lot of people apparently want to continue pretending not to believe it. I say "PRETENDING" on purpose. If the Japanese press can confirm the banking information (and who contrlled the account) by contacting the bank, then there are only a limited number of reasons why US sources are not reporting the same information. NONE of those reasons are particularly flattering to the US media (Im looking at YOU ESPN) This is CLICKBAIT, folks. NOTHING ELSE! Anyone casting doubt on Shohei's explanation is playing the same BS game that BSPN was playing when they broke the story -- reporting half-truths that they KNEW to be half-true, just because a scandal about Shohei is better clickbait than a scandal about a crooked personal assistant. Either that ... or theyre just plain-old-incompetent as journalists, and need to be fired, pronto.

Shohei telling the truth period

wow, this is my first time i agree with Nick… he said if ohtani did bet, he would be subtle and not use his name….

I like how Nick is asking the right questions in good faith. Thought I was going to disagree with nick and Colin here based on the headline. That’s why you listen folks

What I was impressed by Shohei was that he used three different words when he talked about Ippei. At first, he said "a sin made by the one trusted" sadly. And then he used a word "he." Later he called him "Ippei-san" which Japanese people use to express respect for ones older than yourself. Yet it shows some kinds of familiarity also. I think that all shows how Shohei's mixed emotions. Most of all, I clearly saw he's sad and hurt. There's a saying in Japanese. "Hate sin, don't hate people". I think that Shohei is mad at Ippei for what he has done. On the other hand, he still has a feeling of thankfulness to Ippei for what he has done for Shohei throughout years.

Nick Wright, you are smart!

Famously, Dane Cook got robbed of about ten million by his own brother who was handling all his money for him. He found out when he tried to buy a new home and the bank told him "With what?" He was one of the biggest arena comics who made many millions in the 80's. His own brother! By the way, Dane prosecuted him and so far as I know he's still in jail. So it's possible he trusted this guy and he took advantage.

Ohtani had his earnings go to his mother’s bank account when he played for the Fighters while getting only 100,000yen (about $660)/mo which he ended up saving most of it as he lived in the team dorm. I think they calculated that he only spent like $1,000 for himself in the entire 2 years because the guy had no interest in spending money the way how the rest of us would. His way of awarding himself was to stop at Seven Eleven when he played well and buy his favorite dessert, a chocolate crepe which is probably about a buck. His coach back then said he was “the most perfect human being he has ever seen “about his personality and that was he was impressed the most and not about the ability to play baseball. He doesn’t now but back then he appeared on many variety shows in Japan and he was always super respectful, nice, but the most of all, humble. There have been a numerous shows he was featured and so many people have been interviewed who knew him well (his teammates, high school classmates, teachers, neighbors, coaches from his little league…) but they all said the same about him. That’s how we, the Japanese, know that he would never put himself in the position. Many Americans associate this with Pete Rose. There’s a huge difference between Pete Rose and Ohtani as a person. I am now convinced Ohtani has way more class than Rose after hearing Rose’s comment over this!

Nick is 1000% right on this

I think the debt slowly went up. Ippei kept paying it off in 500K installments so he was felt to be good for his money. So the debt ballooned up to 4.5million over those 2-3 years