I Don’t Care if Shohei Ohtani is a Gambler

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned it on this blog, but I genuinely love Shohei Ohtani. Sometimes there’s a player you watch and you realize you are watching something so special you may never see it again. I used to think that was the Patriots (at least at the end), but apparently there must always be one now. For baseball, at least, there is no one like Shohei Ohtani. People love to compare him to Babe Ruth, but truthfully Babe Ruth wouldn’t even make the Freshman team at a high school of 11 kids.

Ever since the story came out, I think everyone has been pretty rightfully suspicious of the official story. At first, Shohei is a bro who helps pay off his friend’s gambling debt. Which, let’s be honest, is a pretty rad move on his part. Imagine you’re coming into three-quarters of a billion dollars and your friend is a couple million dollars of debt to an LA bookie. Wouldn’t you be a bro and transfer some money to get, who I would imagine, are dangerous men off your boy’s back? If you wouldn’t you’re a bum friend.

The second official story is Ippei stole all that money. Which is conversely not a rad move and is a dick move against a great friend. A friend who basically gave him an incredibly cool life.

A lot of people seem very naturally suspicious after his story came out and I think there are a lot of reasons for that. First, Shohei had an incredibly clean boy persona. He was the good boy of baseball (there are very few bad boys – Puig…and others). Since the beginning of the pandemic, we have all found how truly weird celebrities are. We knew they we weird, but not Will and Jada weird.

Second, the story really makes no sense with the way it was presented. There are so many plot lines and red strings, and the Shohei camp isn’t really coming out and being like “hey this is why we presented it differently at first.” We have ESPN interviews and press conferences, but no one saying oopsie.

Third, and probably most importantly, Shohei is now a Dodger. He went from the Angels, where he could happily play his part as Tungsten Arm O’Doyle, to the annoyingly-well funded Dodgers.

The move to the Dodgers was ultimately going to destroy the public’s reputation of him. But, it wasn’t for a waywardly placed pitch or a little-too-excited home run celebration. No, it was his possible dabbling in America’s new favorite past time – sports gambling.

And I’ll say this to anyone who asks me – I don’t care if Shohei Ohtani is a degenerate gambler. I don’t care if he’s calling his bookie at 2 am (PST) betting on Australian horse racing. If he’s doing that – all the more power to him. I’d imagine getting information on horses on an island-continent isn’t easiest thing to acquire.

Call me a glazer, call me a dumb defender, and hey why don’t you even insensate that I’m a Dodgers fan. Because I don’t care what this man has done, if he continues to play the way he has, I expect a Presidential pardon for the man. Shohei Ohtani is changing the game of baseball and influencing those same high schoolers on the team that Babe Ruth couldn’t make. All I’ve learned in my life is that to achieve sporting greatness, you kind of have to be a degenerate gambler. Also, I’m not a gambler. That’s more Brian’s (hypothetical) realm. But even I can see this man is sweating because he definitely bet on these games.

I’m fully onboard the conspiracy that Michael Jordan played baseball as a way to serve his suspension. But there’s a major difference between someone like Shohei Ohtani and Michael Jordan being degenerate gamblers and someone like Jontay Porter. When Shohei and MJ go play a game they’re changing the game. It really doesn’t matter what they bet, because they’re actively working to be the best. Also, even if he bet on himself who cares? He’s clearly only betting the over.

I should start a whole “I Don’t Care” series, because this isn’t one of those things people should care about. Maybe Shohei isn’t the clean-cut all Japanese boy he was sold as. So his worst crime is spending the exorbitant amount of money he earns to place some parlays with a high-level bookie. The man is going to be a billionaire. Not to invoke her name, but if Taylor Swift were laying down some mad 10-bet parlays would we really all care that much? Are we stuck in the 1950s legalistic moralism?

There’s just no world where I’m going to throw a fit in any scenario. If he paid off Ippei’s gambling debt that’s going to make me like Shohei even more. If Ippei stole from him, I will place a fatwa on Ippei. If Shohei Ohtani is a degenerate gambler, then he’s already on his way to be baseball’s MJ. Maybe his wife will teach him to play basketball and we’ll see him on the Lakers G-League team.

Like can we all calm down? This is all because he’s a Dodger making an obscene amount of money (deservedly). Let’s all chill out with the baseball McCarthyism and just watch Shohei Ohtani change the game.

Follow Moon Stamp Sports on Twitter/X, Instagram and Facebook, and follow Jorden on Twitter/X.

Quick end note: I know Opening Day is today, and the Astros are playing. The problem is the Sweet Sixteen is also on, and I’m going to delve fully into the poorly coached basketball. Once this weekend ends I’ll do a better job paying attention to the Astros and MLS.