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00:03 - And Mike, great to have you back here on Newswire.
00:05 And I guess I asked you,
00:07 I think it was probably last week or the week before,
00:09 is this the end with Mitzuhara just pleading guilty?
00:12 And I think we've kind of thought it was the end
00:15 and now a new wrinkle to this.
00:16 And I wonder how much more we're gonna find out.
00:18 We're also gonna find out what kind of friend
00:20 David Fletcher was to Shohei Ohtani and his interpreter
00:23 indeed if this story is true.
00:24 - Yeah, Craig.
00:27 So the Associated Press reported over the weekend
00:28 that Major League Baseball is investigating David Fletcher
00:31 for potentially betting with this illegal bookmaker,
00:33 the same one that Shohei Ohtani's former translator bet with.
00:38 Obviously we know that this translator
00:42 is going to plead guilty to stealing $17 million
00:44 from Ohtani to pay back gambling debts
00:47 to this alleged illegal bookmaker, David Boyer.
00:50 Fletcher and Ohtani apparently were close friends.
00:52 Obviously the translator would have known both of them
00:55 from their time with the Angels.
00:56 So yeah, Craig, a lot to unpack here, obviously.
00:59 We know that Mizuhara is going to plan to plead guilty.
01:02 He could serve up to 33 years in federal prison
01:04 for a couple of charges, failing to file proper taxes
01:09 and then the fraud that he stole from Ohtani.
01:11 So David Fletcher, like you said, is he a good teammate?
01:14 Is there more to this story?
01:15 The federal authorities have cleared Ohtani
01:17 in this investigation.
01:19 In the ESPN reporting, it said that Fletcher bet
01:21 with a minor league player as well.
01:23 That minor league player bet on games
01:25 that Fletcher played in.
01:26 I don't believe Fletcher bet on baseball.
01:28 I think according to the reporting by the AP and ESPN,
01:30 but obviously we'll see on that front,
01:32 that's certainly prohibited.
01:34 As is betting with an illegal bookmaker,
01:35 Fletcher, like you said,
01:36 throwing knuckle balls in the minors.
01:38 I think he got lit up yesterday,
01:39 had a couple of solid outings.
01:40 He was certainly a speedy contact hitter
01:44 in his major league career.
01:45 Switch transitioned here and now faces this.
01:47 So we'll see, right?
01:48 I mean, how long does he play before the,
01:50 whether he's put on some sort of list,
01:53 a prohibited list until the investigation's pending
01:55 or they suspend them right off the bat indefinitely
01:58 until it's over.
01:59 We'll see.
02:00 I don't know how the, you know,
02:01 the MILB Players Association, how that works.
02:04 But, you know, they're clearly, like you said, Craig,
02:06 we're not done here.
02:07 Baseball wants to be done with this.
02:09 Ohtani is the face of the sport,
02:10 but now here we have a former teammate
02:12 and apparently close friend tied to the same investigation
02:17 that the interpreter is under.
02:18 And I think they met the illegal bookmaker at a poker game.
02:22 I think Fletcher and Mizuhara Boyer at a poker game
02:24 in San Diego in 2021.
02:26 So a lot here will be following it.
02:28 Certainly, I know obviously the major outlets will as well,
02:31 who have dominated the reporting here.
02:33 So yeah, Craig, a lot to go on
02:35 and you hope that Ohtani's cleared if you're baseball.
02:37 Maybe we don't worry so much about Fletcher.
02:39 It's fine if a minor league guy, contact, career hitter,
02:42 you know, 250 career hitter is, you know,
02:45 gets suspended or something to that extent,
02:47 but you don't want Ohtani tied up in this
02:49 and clearly this isn't over.
02:51 - Yeah, no, I mean, again, now we're gonna see
02:53 if Fletcher is forced to talk about this
02:54 and what comes out of that.
02:56 Okay, college football season is gonna be here
02:58 before we know it.
02:59 So I think we're like two months away
03:02 from the first college football game.
03:03 And I'm gonna guess we're gonna get more clarity
03:05 on this story before we get there.
03:07 What's the update?
03:08 What's the latest Mike on this college player prop betting?
03:12 'Cause that's really the next big sport here
03:14 for college sports.
03:15 You think that in New Jersey,
03:17 that folks are gonna be able to bet on this
03:19 as it gets banned pretty much everywhere
03:20 across the country?
03:21 - Yeah, Craig, that's a good question, right?
03:25 The NCAA has continued to come out with press releases.
03:28 I think it was Friday they put out a release that said,
03:31 "One out of three high profile players
03:33 deals with harassment from a betting related activity."
03:36 You know, whether it's a losing better
03:37 or somebody wanting to put pressure on them
03:39 to hit whatever prop that they're trying to bet.
03:41 So that's why the NCAA wants to get rid of this thing.
03:43 And then I think we saw another interesting reporting
03:45 from ESPN with help from Legal Sports Report,
03:48 that a lot of these major universities
03:50 have not shown their student athletes
03:52 kind of what the penalties are criminally,
03:54 if you're caught doing any sort of illegal betting.
03:57 That's something Matthew Holt, now with IC360,
04:00 the Integrity Monitor,
04:01 formerly known as US Integrity
04:02 before they merged with another company.
04:05 He had talked about this, that just, you know,
04:09 "Hey, it's your college career, you're not a pro athlete.
04:11 You know, maybe you wanna take a shot
04:12 'cause you don't have the money,
04:13 but at the same time, in some states,
04:14 it's a felony to do this.
04:16 And athletes should know that,
04:18 or at least be made aware of it, right?
04:19 You hope when you do these education programs,
04:21 they're enough."
04:22 Obviously, they weren't in the past.
04:23 I think athletes were confused,
04:24 especially at the pro level.
04:26 "Hey, what can we bet on?
04:27 Why can't we bet at the training facility?"
04:29 All these kinds of questions.
04:30 Now you have college athletes who are 18 to 22 years old,
04:33 not only getting harassed,
04:34 but then not understanding potentially
04:35 at some of these schools.
04:37 If I bet and I get involved
04:40 in some sort of criminal investigation,
04:42 you know, how long can I go to prison?
04:43 And that's something you would wanna tell athletes
04:45 to prevent them from doing this.
04:47 And again, that just goes back to the whole thing with Iowa
04:49 and the players betting on their parents' accounts.
04:53 I think when you're recruiting a player,
04:55 whether it's the coach, the university,
04:56 whoever the official is going for the visit,
04:59 the parents need to sit down too and say,
05:00 "If this kid has an account in your name,
05:02 or he's betting in an account with your name,
05:04 that needs to stop immediately.
05:06 You can't have this.
05:07 Your son or daughter will lose eligibility immediately.
05:11 They could be under investigation for who knows what,
05:14 if it is a federal crime in that state."
05:15 So yeah, I think a lot to be sorted out here.
05:19 And again, with betting kind of in its initial phase,
05:22 even though it's year six since the fall of PASPA,
05:25 this is something, again,
05:26 that's gonna have to need to be monitored
05:28 at the highest levels with integrity.
05:30 And then certainly education,
05:31 you gotta continue to make this better,
05:33 make this something that the players understand.
05:35 So if anything happens,
05:36 "Hey, we told you this was wrong."
05:38 - Right.
05:39 - Not, you know, coming out of left field of where,
05:40 "Wait, nobody told me that."
05:42 I think that has to be something that's solved.
05:44 - Yeah, and that, and listen,
05:45 that's a hard dynamic to accomplish,
05:47 especially, you know, in this landscape of sports betting.
05:50 All right, landscape of sports betting.
05:52 We haven't had one of these happen in hockey.
05:54 Here's a first.
05:55 Mike, we've got a coach saying,
05:56 "Hey, maybe somebody was betting
05:58 on the DraftKings account here."
06:01 We've seen this in all the sports
06:02 where coaches and players have alluded
06:03 to this sort of stuff, but here we go.
06:05 The head coach of the Dallas Stars
06:07 saying that a goal was disallowed.
06:09 You know, a little innuendo toward a sports book here.
06:12 I wonder if a little slap on the wrist
06:14 is coming somewhere.
06:15 - Yeah, Craig, this was Paul Bizonette,
06:17 who was an analyst at TNT.
06:20 And it was just surprising, given the, you know,
06:24 DraftKings, for him to come out and say the ref is,
06:25 and maybe it's rigged.
06:27 Again, I mean, I know he's an analyst,
06:28 but maybe not closer to the coach or player,
06:31 but yeah, that was super surprising.
06:33 I wouldn't be surprised if they tell him,
06:34 you know, "You can't be doing this right."
06:36 They don't want that perception out there,
06:39 and it is there.
06:40 A lot of people saying these games are rigged,
06:42 the officials are against this, whatever the case may be.
06:44 Yeah, this was eye-opener.
06:45 NHL has not been good on transparency with injuries
06:47 since taking business deals with sports books.
06:50 So this is something that, yeah, I wouldn't be surprised
06:52 if somebody says to him, "You can't be saying that."
06:54 - Yeah, I would agree.
06:55 Mike, great to catch up with you.
06:56 Thanks for all the great news, notes, and information,
06:58 and have a great rest of your week.
06:59 Thanks for coming on.
07:01 - Thank you.
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