03-21-2024, 02:58 AM
It's pretty wild. I mean, unless ESPN is way off, or something was lost in translation (sorry, I had to), I think the best case scenario for Ohtani is that he covered gambling depts for his friend and they later realized it looked bad for him to pay the bookie on his behalf, even if he had no knowledge of the betting until he went to help Ippei out of a jam, thus leading to the change in story. Or, maybe they discovered theft in addition to the transfers Ohtani's camp and Ippei spoke about, that might also explain the shifting narrative. It also would make sense that Ippei is simply a fall guy for bets Ohtani made and likely didn't realize were not exactly legal.
And there's some other explanation I'm sure that makes sense as well that isn't immediately coming to mind. But again, the timeline (which perhaps is off) just doesn't support the idea that Ohtani knew nothing of this, unless both someone in Ohtani's camp and Ippei lied to ESPN, or that reporting is somehow off.
And there's some other explanation I'm sure that makes sense as well that isn't immediately coming to mind. But again, the timeline (which perhaps is off) just doesn't support the idea that Ohtani knew nothing of this, unless both someone in Ohtani's camp and Ippei lied to ESPN, or that reporting is somehow off.