Hey folks, Ben here, don't you just love our little chats before the episode even starts?

When there's a pre-intro intro, you know some shit went down.

As it happens, we were just wrapping up the episode you're about to hear.

When news broke about a confusing,

dismaying, murky story about Shohay Otani's longtime interpreter,

constant companion and close friend Ipe Mizuhara,

big sports gambling debts and payments to a bookie under federal investigation,

Anotani's knowledge of and involvement in those debts and payments, if any.

Mizuhara has already been fired by the Dodgers for whatever part he played in this nebulous but serious scandal.

Later on, we will hear the real-time reaction that Meg and I had to this news.

We were blissfully stat-lasting when it surfaced, not suspecting the storm that was about to be unleashed.

We didn't have all the details yet, and it seems like we're still far from having all the details now,

but you'll hear our brief episode ending reaction in the moment which kind of captures the

wTFness of this entire saga.

After that in the outro I'll provide a few clarifications based on subsequent reporting.

Ironically this episode starts

with some conversation about Shoey Otani and about the potential pitfalls of

betting on sports. We did not yet suspect at that point that those threads would be woven together in some way

by the time we were finished speaking. However, the revelations that came out during our recording

are kind of case in point for why our initial banter about sports gambling and the omnipresence of the marketing surrounding it took the tone it did.

You'll hear what I mean. I think it's too soon to draw any firm conclusions about what went down

among Mizuhara and Otani and the alleged bookie Matthew

...