Introducing: The Betrayal of Shohei Ohtani - "The Letter O" | EP 1

Betrayal listeners, we're excited to share a special ad-free preview of Episode One of this season of​ ESPN’s 30 for 30 Podcasts: The Betrayal of Shohei Ohtani. Episode 1: "The Letter O" — ESPN Investigative Reporter Tisha Thompson receives a tip that, if true, could damage Shohei Ohtani’s picture-perfect reputation. If you enjoyed what you heard, you can binge all six episodes of The Betrayal of Shohei Ohtani on the 30 for 30 Podcasts feed or by searching for "The Betrayal of Shohei Ohtani" on the iHeartRadio app https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1333-the-betrayal-of-shohei-oh-339276457/, Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-betrayal-of-shohei-ohtani/id6792804492, Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/033RbIWepKp2GXbgDUsZbT, YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyAuX7yAMeo&list=PLn3nHXu50t5yx6qxmPHIv4Eaw5Zkqa9dx&index=6, or wherever you get your podcasts. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Hey everyone, it's Andrea. You know, growing up in Philly, sports were never something you watched casually. They were personal, part of your identity, really. And when you're a lifelong sports fan like me, you understand loyalty between a team and its fans, between lifelong teammates, and between an athlete and the people they trust most. So when I heard a story that brings sports and betrayal together, I had to know more. Shohei Ohtani was one of the most celebrated athletes in the world. But behind his meteoric rise was a mysterious man Ohtani trusted more than almost anyone: his interpreter. After six years working alongside Ohtani, his interpreter became a close confidant.

• 0:44Speaker 00

  But that relationship built on years of trust almost threatened everything. ESPN investigative reporter Tisha Thompson and her team broke the story. Now they're taking us inside the investigation to show us how it all really unfolded. For our betrayal listeners, I'm excited to share a special preview of episode one of this season of ESPN's 30 for 30 podcast, The Betrayal of Shohei Ohtani. This is the letter O. Enjoy.

• 1:28Speaker 01

  It's November 2024, and the Los Angeles Dodgers are in their home stadium, celebrating their World Series win. The players line up on the podium. Team manager Dave Roberts takes the mic and introduces some of the stars.

• 1:47Speaker 01

  And then he calls out the name everyone's waiting for.

• 1:56Speaker 01

  Shohei Ohtani just finished his first season with the Dodgers. He's a head taller than a lot of his teammates, and he's wearing a t-shirt and backwards ball cap when he gives a shy grin as he takes the mic.

• 2:12Speaker 02

  This is so special moment moving.

• 2:16Speaker 01

  This is one of the first times that Shohei has spoken publicly in English without an interpreter.

• 2:22Speaker 02

  I'm so honored to be here and to be part of his team. Congratulations, Los Angeles. Thank you, fans.

• 2:34Speaker 01

  That's all he says, and the crowd absolutely loves it.

• 2:41Speaker 01

  By any measure, Shohei's first season with the Dodgers was extraordinary.

• 3:17Speaker 01

  Many believe he could become the best baseball player of all time.

• 3:21Speaker 03

  It's really not hyperbole, guys, to say that Shohei Ohtani is the new Babe Ruth.

• 3:35Speaker 01

  It's the kind of success that helps overshadow what happened just months before, at the start of this season, when Shohei was caught up in a scandal that could have ended it all.

• 3:47Speaker 04

  We're going to turn to the scandal rocking Major League Baseball. Shohei Ohtani is set to address the media today.

• 3:53Speaker 05

  This scandal has the potential to be one of the biggest sports scandals that we've ever seen, certainly one of the biggest baseball scandals that we've ever seen.

• 3:59Speaker 01

  Our team at ESPN broke the story. It tied the money of one of the highest-paid players in baseball history to a vast illegal sports betting operation. But when it was over, he would walk away, and someone else, someone close to him, would confess to a shocking crime, disappearing in disgrace.

• 4:27Speaker 01

  And in this moment, at the World Series celebration, you could almost forget it ever happened.

• 4:36Speaker 01

  But two years later, I still have so many questions. So I'm going to travel the country, chase down leads, and try to understand how one of sports' most complicated friendships detonated into one of the biggest scandals in baseball history.

• 5:08Speaker 01

  I'm ESPN investigative reporter Tisha Thompson. From 30 for 30 podcasts, this is The Betrayal of Shohei Ohtani, episode one, the letter O. I started working on this story a year before Shohei won that World Series, when a source sent me a tip. At first, the tip seemed to have nothing to do with baseball or any sport. It was information from a federal court document, still under seal, a list of items that had been seized from a house in California. It included the kinds of things you might expect from a federal raid: computers, hard drives, and cell phones.

• 5:51Speaker 01

  But there were also $40,000 Breitling watches, handbags from Chanel, Hermes, Louis Vuitton, and casino chips. Lots and lots of casino chips. Why were the feds interested in it? Because all of these things were taken from a house owned by a man named Matt Boyer.

• 6:17Speaker 01

  The feds also seized a cash counting machine, sports betting records, and receipts for offshore bank wires. And that's when I say to myself, I think Matt Boyer is a bookie, a person who takes bets, pays them out when they win, and collects when they lose. My source confirms it. Matt Boyer is a bookie, but he isn't just any bookie. According to my source, his clients include celebrities, millionaires, and seemingly one of the most famous athletes in the world. When my source tells me the name of that athlete, it's a name so big, so shocking, that all I write down is the letter O.

• 7:02Speaker 01

  You tell me the name of the athlete involved, and that the feds are involved in an investigation, and that is why we have to be so careful. This is my editor, Elaine Tang. We're really worried about putting a rumor out there that then comes back to us as fact. We have to be really careful about going out and saying, like, hey, like, do you think, is Shohei Ohtani gambling with a bookie? This tip was so potentially damning, we needed to tread really carefully, because it could turn into a very grown-up version of that kid's game, telephone, where someone whispers something to someone, and then they whisper it to someone else, and by the time it comes back to you, it's totally different from what you said. I couldn't just ask sources questions like, hey, does Shohei gamble?

• 7:47Speaker 01

  Even if the answer was no, they might tell someone else in the clubhouse that ESPN was asking if Shohei gambled. And then that person says to someone else, hey, I heard Shohei gambles. By the time I call several someones later, that person then says to me, oh, yeah, I have heard he gambles. All I have done is confirm a rumor that I started, a rumor about Shohei Ohtani paying millions of dollars to an illegal bookie. I think it was the amount of money involved, as well as the caliber of the athlete, that feels really loaded and, you know, extremely damaging, if true, right, to the athlete, their reputation, their career. It's a very serious allegation.

• 8:31Speaker 01

  I want to learn everything I can about what someone could get themselves into betting with a bookie. So I head to the sports betting epicenter of the country. We are in Las Vegas, baby.

• 8:44Speaker 01

  I'm in Las Vegas to meet with the reporter I think knows more about bookies and sports betting than anyone else in the business. What do you think the biggest moneymaker is for the casino? Penny slot. That's correct.

• 8:58Speaker 01

  This is ESPN's David Purdom. I met him in a casino just off the Vegas Strip. We sit down in a room near the sportsbook, watching as people place bets. Did they put the sportsbook in the back on purpose? Make you walk through all the flop machines.

• 9:18Speaker 01

  I wanted to talk to Purdum about the tip I received because he has a massive rolodex of sources in the sports betting world. Had you ever heard of Matt Boyer before?

• 9:27Speaker 06

  No, I had not. Never heard of him.

• 9:28Speaker 01

  We gave you Matt Boyer's name and you called sources. You do the David Purdum magic and disappear for 12 hours and came back with info.

• 9:40Speaker 06

  Right. I usually go to, you start with your guys that you know have had this. And when they didn't know, I had to expand and I did and found some people that knew of him. And then when we found out that he was coming to Vegas, a lot of I talked to people here and they knew of him.

• 9:57Speaker 01

  A source warned Purdum that Boyer was connected to a man with a dangerous reputation. A guy named Owen Hansen, a former USC football player who became known as the cocaine QB. When I got the original tip, Hansen was in prison for bookmaking and drug trafficking and was rumored to have ties to the cartel.

• 10:18Speaker 06

  We had a source who was involved with running money for that group. And he was telling us, be careful, right? Because Owen Hansen was not known as a good person. He was known as a violent person around the betting community. And when there was ties to Boyer, there was concern.

• 10:40Speaker 01

  Over the next few weeks, we gathered more sources and confirmed Boyer was running a huge sportsbook operation in Southern California. Is California more prolific with bookies than other parts of the world?

• 10:54Speaker 06

  Massive, massive bookmaking operations in California.

• 10:56Speaker 01

  Why?

• 10:57Speaker 06

  Because there's no legal sports bet.

• 10:59Speaker 01

  Sports betting is now legal in 39 states, plus Washington DC and Puerto Rico. Depending on where you live, you can place bets through a state licensed app, a website, or in a casino or a bar in those states. But unless you're betting on a horse race, sports betting in California is illegal. There is no legal way to place a sports bet there, not on DraftKings, not on FanDuel, not in the tribal casinos. So if you live in California and you want to bet on sports, you either have to go somewhere like Vegas or find a bookie, which is of course illegal. But there are many reasons why someone might want to use a bookie, even if the state they live in has legal sports betting.

• 11:45Speaker 01

  Purdum says a big reason is credit.

• 11:48Speaker 06

  People want to bet on credit. You don't want to give over your cash. If you can bet on credit, huge advantage. I can just place my bet for $100 and my money never changes hands. You go down a thousand bucks, the guy says, okay, let's meet up at the Waffle House and you go there and you pass over an envelope and that's how it's done.

• 12:07Speaker 01

  Another reason someone might seek out a bookie is anonymity.

• 12:11Speaker 06

  If you are an athlete betting with DraftKings, there's a chance that we could find it. But if you could be betting with this illegal sportsbook over here, I would not be able to know it.

• 12:24Speaker 01

  So Purdum says a celebrity who wants to bet discreetly might use a bookie. When I told him that Shohei Ohtani was the athlete my source told me might be involved with Matt Boyer.

• 12:36Speaker 06

  I was stunned. I remember when you relayed the message to who the athlete was, I was like, oh my gosh, I believe I cursed.

• 12:46Speaker 01

  Why is sports betting such a sensitive topic for Major League Baseball?

• 12:54Speaker 06

  Well, you start with the Black Sox. Way back at the beginning of the century, the Chicago White Sox, several players of them got engaged with some criminals and they allegedly agreed to throw a World Series.

• 13:13Speaker 01

  Major League Baseball banned eight players from the Chicago White Sox for life. And after that scandal, the league created a set of rules about betting on sports. It forbids players, coaches, and staff from using a bookie and you may never bet on baseball.

• 13:30Speaker 06

  So that was the big one. The next time you get some sort of betting scandal is Pete Rose.

• 13:42Speaker 06

  All time hits leader. He eventually admitted to betting on the game of baseball.

• 13:48Speaker 01

  I was wrong. I'm just stupid. Worst thing I ever did in my life. In 1989, MLB punished Pete Rose with a lifetime ban for betting on baseball.

• 14:00Speaker 01

  Pete Rose was one of the greatest ballplayers of his generation. He holds records that have never been broken. But all of his feats on the field have been overshadowed by what he did off the field. Could Shohei Ohtani, the greatest player of his generation, be the next Pete Rose?

• 14:18Speaker 06

  If they were to have found out that he was betting on baseball, he would have been banned for life. And this is your biggest star banned for life.

• 14:29Speaker 01

  Part of what made the allegation so shocking was how Shohei Ohtani had a reputation for being squeaky clean. Before this, there's never been a whisper of a scandal attached to his name, which makes it all the more surprising to hear allegations that he might be tied to a bookie with dangerous connections. But we realized, we don't actually know all that much about Shohei's life outside of baseball.

• 14:55Speaker 03

  He is the most guarded and protected athlete that I think I've ever been around.

• 15:03Speaker 01

  This is ESPN's Tim Kuen. Tim specializes in writing profiles of the most famous and oftentimes controversial names in sports. People like Barry Bonds, Aaron Rodgers, Floyd Mayweather Jr. Tim says he's been trying to decipher the enigma that is Shohei Ohtani ever since he first arrived here in the United States.

• 15:25Speaker 03

  When he came here, I first started observing him, knowing that I was going to have to observe him to write about him rather than talk to him because it was established early on that it was a dead end. He will only take questions about the game and very few, three, maybe four in each language. And these are in like bit questions. I want to know, like, you just threw 117 pitches. Are you, what do you feel today? And he would not, he just doesn't entertain those. He's just not built that way.

• 15:55Speaker 01

  Tim says most of what you know about Shohei is limited to what Shohei is willing to tell you and it rarely leaves the realm of the ballpark. And when it does, it's on Shohei's terms. Like when he got married, people didn't even know Shohei was in a relationship until he posted about his wife on Instagram.

• 16:14Speaker 06

  He has lots of titles, MVP, gazillionaire, superstar, but the husband had eluded him until now and he made the announcement where else but on social media that reads, not only have I begun a new chapter in my career with the Dodgers, but I also have begun a new life with someone from my native country of Japan, who is very special to me and I wanted everyone to know I am now married.

• 16:38Speaker 01

  Shohei's teammates and even Dodgers manager Dave Roberts didn't know about it.

• 16:43Speaker 04

  I felt like it was a good timing because it's before the season. I didn't want really any distractions once the season started.

• 16:52Speaker 03

  I think there is this, the sort of the aura, right? Like just leave him alone to do what he does because the distractions are not something he's interested in. He's not interested in talking to me, to be honest. He does it as an obligation after he pitches. If he hits two home runs in a game, he'll stand there and answer questions in the most anodyne way possible. Are you nervous at all playing in the postseason for the first time?

• 17:17Speaker 05

  I'm supposed to see you.

• 17:21Speaker 01

  But the league, the teams, and the fans don't seem to mind not knowing much about Shohei's life off the field because what's happening on the field is record breaking.

• 17:32Speaker 03

  He's really challenged our idea of limits because he has shown his talent to be limitless. He does the two things that excite baseball people more than anything else.

• 17:45Speaker 03

  He can throw a baseball over 100 miles an hour and he can hit a ball 500 feet.

• 17:52Speaker 03

  It's like the two headline acts of baseball. He is among the best in the world at both, if not the best.

• 18:05Speaker 03

  After he struck out three at the top of the first. He is a dream for Major League Baseball.

• 18:12Speaker 01

  And the Dodgers rewarded him in the fall of 2023 with a record-breaking contract.

• 18:17Speaker 07

  It is the announcement that took the baseball world by storm today.

• 18:20Speaker 03

  Seven hundred million dollars over 10 years. Oh my goodness, come on.

• 18:29Speaker 01

  One of the league's premier franchises made a historic bet on Shohei. Because they knew his success would be their success. They stood to make a lot of money, too. Ticket sales, merchandise, partnerships. Shohei's success could pay off big time for the Dodgers in MLB. Shohei himself makes more than 125 million dollars in endorsements a year, with much of that money coming from advertisements in Japan.

• 18:58Speaker 03

  When I was there, I was shocked by you could literally not walk more than two blocks in Tokyo without seeing his face on something. Whether it was a green tea, or a water, sports drink, or Hugo Boss, or something. I mean, everywhere is Ohtani.

• 19:14Speaker 07

  After touching down in Tokyo, it's easy to see Ohtani mania is really a thing.

• 19:21Speaker 07

  Everyone in Japan is by default a Shohei fan.

• 19:27Speaker 03

  The appetite for Ohtani, the love for Ohtani, appears to be as limitless as his talent.

• 19:33Speaker 01

  If Shohei's reputation takes a hit, it wouldn't just tarnish his name. It would have devastating consequences for the Dodgers, for Major League Baseball, and for Japan.

• 19:46Speaker 00

  Thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed what you heard, you can now binge all six episodes of The Betrayal of Shohei Ohtani on the 30 for 30 podcast feed, or by searching The Betrayal of Shohei Ohtani on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. I hope you enjoy this podcast as much as I do.

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