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This is the Dan Levatore show with the Stuka That's podcast.

I really do think we're sitting in the center of gambling normalization. Here comes a chaos that can't be policed to sports. I'm glad that Emina Hassen, 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? This is some out-of-control problem when we only find out about it when it's being I'm controlled. Okay, I don't know what that sound was at the end of the- It's just this is the process working.

I'm glad that Amin Al-Hassan 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 problem is going to be, that's going to 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 the details of this are the most overt thing we've seen since the 1919 Black Sox scandals of, Oh, this guy did this. He just went out It was 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.

I would say that Headache Smith at Arizona State in the '90s was 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. 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. The idea of having a sportsbook in your venue, that's normal in Europe. Here we're like, oh, my God, the Wizards open a a sportsbook in their venue. That was three or four years ago, and people fainted. But 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 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 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, now, I know Jontay Porter is a two-way guy, not making a gajillion dollars, and more importantly, not having the longevity that would indicate, Oh, man, if I just keep doing this, I'm going to 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 that doesn't move the needle, right? So people say, for instance, Rudy Gobert was trying to insinuate that referees are in on this. It makes no sense for an NBA referee to be in on something like this because if you do a good job as an NBA referee, your career is going to be 10, 15, 20 years of just making this money and having Having a very well-to-do lifestyle. For most NBA players, they're making the type of money that... You're saying a million dollars. You think there's somebody out there who gave him a million dollars?

I'm just saying that on this bet, I thought the prop numbers on this. You can only bet certain amounts on prop. So I would like to know what's true and what's not true about that being DraftKings' biggest winner in a night. You could game the system in a night if you're a player fixing it with a certain A lot 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. If you see the alleged crime that he committed, the volume isn't such. But those are typically the tier of 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.

They're also the most expendable, too. If you're going to send a message, send a message with lower-tier players where it's like, Hey, look what couldn't happen to you.

Are you speaking to the Ohtani conspiracy theory?

No. Free Ipe, 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 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.

But I guess my thing is, it's so easily detectable, I think.

People know. With a more legalized standard, yes.

It's easily detectable. There's something happening here that's weird, right?

Which is we saw it a couple of weeks ago when the Temple basketball came. As they made a run, they were imbroiled and say, Hey, what is this very weird volume.

Because they can see the money coming in, right? Same thing with this situation. We saw the money coming in. Same thing with Tim Donahee. 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 reffed. 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 reffing because he was the one.

I mean, if you're bringing us the perspective of Headache Smith, a '90s basketball player who was a star player and gambling that way, where you've bought a star player. This seems to be more easier, guaranteed money. If you can get a prop under and tilt the scales to make an amount of money to be DraftKings' 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 $0 as a collegiate basketball player versus Jontay Porter who's making some money. But at the end of the day, there are limits to how much you could put on props. When you say it was their most popular bet of the night, that wasn't one person coming in, but give me $12 million dollars on Jontay Porter.

No, you can't do it that way.

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.

Yeah, I don't think- It's just not worth the squeeze. No, you may see isolated incidents, and those bets typically have a volume that will 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'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 on derge, you can't take college props. Certain books 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 the 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.

Yeah, not a gambling style.

We almost got them. I wasn't 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 guess like John T. Porter? Allegedly. Allegedly. But I just- I'm an interpreter. Because the other thing also is just like, it's the weirdest prop bet in the world. I want to bet the Unders on John T. Porter. Automatically, DraftKings is about to- Teller's like, Who? Hold for a second.

But do we know how much money is involved with the bets? That part matters. I feel like we can make it about nothing.

The detail that we know is that it was the single biggest money maker in terms of prop action. Of that day. Of that day.

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 move can't be, Okay, this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to start the game, and then I'm going to go, I've got to go back to the... Oh, bubble guts.

I've got to go back to the... This begs the question. If you were a gambler and you were in the NBA and 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 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 do the dream on. Just choke somebody out 16 seconds into the game.

Okay, it's not a smart crime because there are going to be questions after the game, but it's less lame than my eye hurts.

I think the bubble guts 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? It's still acting up. But to say, Oh, that kung-pou chicken doesn't agree with me. That's hilarious.

What are your thoughts on bigger balls? In the NBA. Biger bowls in the WNBA to mitigate the guys. I'm not going for this thing. I understand your thing.

What do he want?

He wants to fix the league. You know how in the WNBA, they have smaller balls? Not fix it, not fix it with the NBA. In the NBA, we're jacking up all these shots from way downtown, and we can mitigate that by 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 offseason work out with these things called medicine balls that are larger than a basketball and much heavier?

I didn't even think about making it a medicine ball. It seems like they're plenty of practice there and they don't have an issue with it.

Medicine balls don't dribble well, though. Not good bouncer, no. They're good for shooting, though.

Make it heavier. Make it bigger and heavier.

Bigger balls, 2024.

Bigger, heavier balls.

What about my good idea? Limit each team to 10 three-point shots a game. That way, you don't only limit threes.

This is a new and improved Dan Levatard show with the Stugats.

Gamble on by DraftKings. What if I'm behind by 15 going into the fourth corner? I sure am glad I have eight threes left.

Dan Levatard. Why are you so bad at this? Stugatz.

I can't answer that question. It's a good one, though. I've been thinking about it a lot.

This is the Dan Levatard Show with the Stugatz.

Tim? Yes.

Does Adam Silver look like a test tube?

So bad.

He does look like a test tube if you- If he does. Tim, we had begun the segment there, Tim. I had begun the segment with you, Tim, and you just walked off. 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 disk.

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 weren't paying any- The speakers. I got to get one of those.

Oh, my God.

Tim, I think the camera needs to be in 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 ridiculous. It's a stream. You know how many people think this is It's ridiculous. It's not anymore. 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. Adam Silver looks like the white Tony Dungy. You sent me this. This is it.

Yes.

I love that his image froze on that. Right.

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 prides. Tim Kurchin is also a friend, friend of the show, friend of mine, and he has had an unspeakably hard time that he would never complain about publicly at home because to do so would be undignified. But he has dealt with grief and loss and stuff that really hurts. I 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 his career reminds me of what I was able to do with my father on television. 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 ask me, how Tim Kerkshan would want his grandfatherly years to go if he had imagined them 40 years ago.

What do you mean, I get to talk baseball with my kid one day a week and they're going to pay me for it?

Right. And that's exactly why I'm doing this, Dan, and the reason I'm doing it is because it's my son and I love him. He's also a genius, a magician with technology. So I tweeted the other day for my 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. 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 We only know about baseball and a little bit about basketball and nothing else.

Let me explain something else to you, Kurchin. 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.

He's snitching, damn, damn, Tim.

Because he can type stuff on the tweet and then send it, I think.

It's the technological genius part. Don't get access to your bank account.

You know what I mean, I'm just laughing at this man's background. 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 music talks. And he's thrown country... I called 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 this show. So it's not just going to be pure baseball, me telling stories. It's going to be back and forth, me and my son. And hopefully, I'll learn 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? The name of it should be, I'm going to take what's left of grandpa's money or grandpa's knowledge, or that he is going to use the Kurchin brand to branch out into podcast when you normally don't care about podcasts. Certainly, you don't listen to them and you don't know how to download them.

I don't know how to download them. I 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. That's the only reason I'm doing it. If he cashes in on me, if we make any money on this, he's getting it, not me. I don't care about that.

All right. I want to get in the bidding. I want to get in the bidding for this podcast. I don't know if I can buy it from ESPN. You're just announcing it. This might be tampered, but I'd like to get in on bidding on whatever it is this podcast becomes, because on one of the episodes, you called me the other day and you were giggling. The one time I put you and Mike Shore together at microphones, you talked for 50 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. People love listening to you on baseball, and you're like a kid opening baseball cards when you talk to Mike Shur.

Right. And we open baseball cards on several segments where they just open a card and my son says, All right, tell us a 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 4 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 unhelpfully addicted to the game. And Mike told me about three stories that I've never heard before. And 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 $95,000. 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 $95,000?

He thought he had it on him. That's one of a million stories that Mike Sure told that made me laugh out.

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. He wanted to buy a house there for his family. He asked his agent, Can I afford this house here? His agent told him, Mani, you can afford the whole bleeping neighborhood. How do you not know? But Tim, you've got all sorts of stories like that where I want to get into the Ohtani stuff with you, and I want to get into some of the elements here of how much was Ohtani relying on his translator as an all-purpose person that he trusted with everything, including his bank accounts. But I want to talk to you about the difficulties players have in transitioning over here because the excuse on Ohtani can't be as simple as he wasn't familiar with gambling rules, and he doesn't know the difference between a draft king and a guy named Manny who's running a syndicate. The controversy is a weird one, and I don't think I totally understand what he might be guilty of here.

Right. I'm with you, too, Dan. I think we need to ask a million more questions about this. 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. 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 believed most of what he said yesterday, and others have told me I am completely wrong about that.

But I don't know how he could not know what was going on, and those Those are the questions that need to be answered.

Here's the problem with you, Kirchen, in your eternal niceness. Everyone can get away with everything because the whole steroid thing happened right under your nose. You're a journalist, and the whole thing happened right under your nose. You're like, I believe O'Tani. The truth is, I do, too. But they can get away with anything on your watch, Kirchen, because you love the sport too much. Look at him. Look how disappointed he is with it. Are you mad at me? Did I just actually enrage Tim Kurchin?

No, it happened under your nose, too.

Tell his ass.

It 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 Mark Fana Ruwada 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 missed 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 a great many of the people who cover anything, never mind just baseball. The weirdness of what happened with an interview that then looked like a 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 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 Shohe 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 We didn't 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 when he was telling the story, and if you go by the timeline of how things have been going on, because the fact that it was going on in two different countries at the same time, 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 Ipé 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, Ipé had already conducted the interview It had been disavowed. I just don't understand how no one else in Shoheys camp said anything to him. 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, something's actually on. How is no one else in his team 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 Shohe understands more English than most people think that goes for each row, and a lot 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'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 Lebatard. 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 Stugatz. That's same for strike two. But strike three, you get down low.

You got your hands behind the catcher.

The right arm goes up into the air. Then you finish it with the punch. The right arm flings way up into the air. I wish I could see that.

It's terrible.

The audio is great.

This is the Dan Levatard show with the Stugats.

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 for me? And he took the charge on his chin. He got two years left on his sentence. I think that Epe 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, 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 Shohe. 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, 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-face 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 Shohe 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 going to turn up anything that's going to have actual implications for Shohe. Just because I think that this is a different time than Pete Rose, for example, where baseball is now a business. And if your biggest star is putting your business in a position, are you going to decide with business or integrity? So they can say, Oh, we looked, nothing turned up. But when you start lying in a federal investigation, you need to see it through. 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. 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 ride this entire thing out, correct? Allegedly. Allegedly.

Allegedly. Four million dollars is nothing for me. Tim, you could speak to this part of it as well, because you have the history of knowing what these translators do while O'Tani's life is the strangest in all of baseball in terms of what surrounds him. Media members just following him everywhere, and the translator acting, in some cases, as a 24-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- He was talking about traffic concierge.

To put an accente over the O is just- Concierge. No, it's concierge.

. All right, Dan, I'll attempt to answer this. Daniel Kim used to be a translator for the Mets, and he has come out and said, as a translator, he did virtually everything for 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. But I still don't understand how someone could be this helpful and still take, allegedly take this money and no one knows about it. That's the part that I need questions and That's true.

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 Ohtani to be great at baseball and transition culturally. Wow, 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 a sports star who knows baseball? Is it possible that Shoheya Tani, only crime here is being super, super trusting of somebody who had a gambling problem and just covered him $4 million because currency doesn't even matter to him. He makes so much money. Right.

He made $100 million last year, Dan, with endorsements and salary. And yes, I think that's 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 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 regimened 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 got to throw a bullpen. 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. This is where I think you can offer an insight to how it is something this strange and stupid can happen. Tim, you're the only person that I know who has the words and the respect of history who can explain to us how hard it is to do what Ohtani 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 how hard it is for him to master and Excel at that must require a regimen 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 100 miles an hour. He hits baseballs thrown at him at 100 miles an hour. And his exit velocity, not my favorite term, is well over 100 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 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. I'm 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 away from the field.

But we're also infantilizing him, right? We like him, so we're giving him passes on a lot of things. He had a wife that no one knew existed. He had a dog that he just refused to tell anyone if the dog's name. He likes to be secretive, too. 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 theory that there's total innocence or are 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. If you put me in Japan right now, I'm 55. I couldn't get something out of a vending machine. I'd be, Mike, what do I If you put me in Japan, I'm 30 years older than Ohtani, and I'm not great at things that he's great at.

You've got enough problems in this country.

You don't speak Japanese?

Does Shohe need Major League Baseball? Because it feels like Major League needs Shohe more than he needs Major League Base. Bar.

Look, Shohe needs Major League Base. All he's ever wanted to do is be the greatest player who's ever played, and he needs Major League Base to do that. I'm with you, Dan. I'm 40 years older than him. 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 I don't 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 light? Because I don't know how to do this. She said, Okay. Oh, great.

Tell you, 96 calories.

I can't do this stuff in our country, going to Japan. Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Going to Japan. And Dan, I'm not saying he's totally innocent. I'm just saying believable.

Say that again. I think what Jimmy's saying He said he did it. If it looked 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.

Can 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.

Well said, Juju, but it was his fault.

It was the fault of your Zoom, but it's nice to have you back here, Tim. 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. 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. 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, and to the degree you wish to share with our audience, which cares about you deeply, about how hard your last 10 years have been and why it is you might have an appreciation for this project that you didn't have 10 years ago. I'd like my audience to know that 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 and he doesn't know what a barcode is.

Right. In a bar, I don't know what a barcode is. I'm doing a podcast with my son because I've always wanted to do this. 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, Hey, can the Rangers repeat? Or When is Max 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 Smolton. And instead of asking him, Tell us who great Greg Maddox was, we asked him about golf because it's running during Master's 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 behind Jeff Frankour going into 18, his dear friend, and beat him by five shots. He took a four, and Frankore took a 14. Those are the 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 going to have a good time with two people who love the game and love each other, as corny as that sounds.

We love you, too. You know this. Let's see if we give him a couple of these on the way out. Are you guys ready?

Wonderful energy by you, though.

Especially with the setup.

I'm trying to build up, but lower expectations adoptions as well. Those are difficult things to do together. Does Baker Mayfield look... Hold on a second.

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 Garner Minchou 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. That is the last one. It's true. It's good. He does. He does. He looks like Bert Angle. He loses every time. He wears beige shorts. He's not a... Bert Angle is no good.

It's damn true.

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 Virk looks like he's the man standing on the shoreline when James Bond crawls to shore and says, Welcome to Tangier, Mr. Bond.

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 Tangier. ' All your stupid show. It was so bad. It was so funny.

We love seeing you, buddy. Again, check out Tim's new podcast. 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. It's 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 to be eternally funny.

Love you, brother.

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