Jay are you a Shohe Ottani fan?

I think so.

J Caspian Kang is a writer for the New Yorker and a sports fan.

I called him up to talk baseball.

You don't sound very committed.

Well, I think that normally under normal conditions that I wouldn't be,

just because he plays for the Dodgers, he played for the Angels.

Those are not teams that I generally agree for, but nobody since Babe Ruth has really done what he's done.

It's been like a hundred years I guess. So...

Shohe Otani has been MVP twice now. His nickname is Showtime and the

comparison with Babe Ruth comes up a lot.

You know he doesn't really speak too much to the media at least not in English and

so it's almost like this alien landed in the major leagues and started doing things that nobody thought was possible ever.

And so, yeah, it's hard not to be drawn in by it.

But for the last few days, and this is why I really called up Jay,

Otani has been better known as part of a massive bedding scandal.

Shohay O'Tani, the golden boy of Major League Baseball, the next Babe Ruth, the highest paid athlete in American

sports, I believe, of all time, is in some hot water right now for some...

What we know is that four and a half million dollars

seems to have vaporized from Otani's personal bank account

sent to an illegal bookmaker who's been under federal investigation.

At first, the story was that Otani lent money to his interpreter, who'd gotten himself

...