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View this email online by Linda Holmes Welcome! It was the week when Beyoncé showed up at the Guggenheim (sort of). It was the week when we said goodbye to one of our greatest character actors. And it was the week when Travis Kelce had Love is Blind opinions. Let's get to it. For once, baseball wants Shohei Ohtani out of the news If you had asked me on Wednesday what would be the worst story for Major League Baseball that could break between then and opening day (March 28) that did not involve anyone being physically hurt, I would have had a hard time coming up with anything worse than "Shohei Ohtani-adjacent gambling scandal." Ohtani's talent is tremendous. He is a kind of player who, for a long time, seemed not to exist: an elite hitter who is also an elite pitcher. The assumption that pitchers will not be able to hit is so ingrained that all of Major League Baseball now excuses them from even trying, via the designated hitter. In the past, when I have stubbornly grumped about the DH, having grown up following a National League team where pitchers had to hit, people have said to me, "So you want a dead spot in the lineup where you know nothing will ever happen and the guy will always strike out?" Putting aside the occasional Bartolo Colón miracle, it's true that pitcher at-bats have long been a pretty reliably boring part of most games. But, you know. Then came Shohei Ohtani. Baseball star Shohei Ohtani (right) and his interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara (left), are seen in the dugout in the 2024 MLB Seoul Series game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the San Diego Padres.  Jung Yeon-Je/AFP via Getty Images The run-up to Ohtani's eye-popping 10-year contract with the Dodgers for $700 million occupied baseball people for weeks if not months, as they speculated about what he would do. And once he went with the Dodgers, a season of massive promotion and excitement seemed likely. And then came this gambling thing. Which, to be entirely clear, does not, at least at this point, involve any allegation by anybody that Ohtani did any gambling at all, let alone any betting on baseball. But what did happen is that a lot of money was wired from his account to a California bookmaking outfit. Here's how it developed, in brief: The Dodgers fired Ohtani's longtime interpreter and friend Ippei Mizuhara on Wednesday, which was related to Ohtani's name coming up in an investigation of the California bookie. (Sports betting is legal in a lot of states now, but not California.) Mizuhara initially told ESPN, in an interview an Ohtani representative set up, that what had happened was he had a huge gambling debt, and because they're very close, Ohtani stepped in to loan him the money to pay it off, making the wire transfer to the bookie himself. So in this version of events, yes, Ohtani wired money to a bookie, but only to pay off his friend's debt. But shortly thereafter, Ohtani's representatives changed course and told a different story -- that Mizuhara had simply stolen the money, and Ohtani knew nothing about it. Mizuhara then took back his original story and said yes, this was true, Ohtani didn't know about it. There was no understanding friend loaning him the money; he just took it, presumably wiring it without permission. (ESPN's Tisha Thompson told this whole story to NPR's Michel Martin.) It's not impossible to come up with multiple possible explanations for these changing stories. Maybe Ohtani didn't know about the money being wired (in other words: it really was theft), and Mizuhara for some reason thought Ohtani would cover for him by agreeing it was a loan. Or maybe Ohtani did know about it (in other words: it really was a loan as he originally said), and Mizuhara later agreed to say otherwise, since even the loan scenario could get Ohtani in hot water for wiring the money, even if he was not the gambler. How bad is all this? Writer Molly Knight put it well in her Substack on this issue under the ominous headline "Say It Ain't Sho": "Shohei Ohtani is the one player MLB cannot afford to have caught up in any whiff of a scandal, let alone one that involves illegal gambling — a sin for which the league's all-time hit leader, Pete Rose, earned a lifetime ban." The bizarre thing is that this all takes place against a backdrop of baseball (and some other professional sports) having embraced operations like DraftKings and FanDuel that involve wagering, both on fantasy sports and on games themselves. I commend to you Keith O'Brien's piece in Politico about the explosion of sports betting in just the last handful of years. O'Brien cites a statistic estimating that three percent of the population (or more) is vulnerable to developing problematic or compulsive gambling habits. If that's true, it's just math: The more betting there is, the more you expand the industry, the more it's going to bump up against the athletes and the game. Athletes' families, their friends, people who work for teams, and yes, people who play on teams themselves. At this point, baseball's leaders can't really come out against sports betting more broadly, the way they did when Pete Rose was banned. How can they? They're running ads for it. Neither Mizuhara nor Ohtani has been charged with a crime and it's much too early to know for sure what happened; it's possible we never will. And sadly, there are already people leaping without evidence to the conclusion that Ohtani himself was gambling, a cloud he may never get out from under. It's hard to overstate Ohtani's importance to the game and the business of Major League Baseball. He is brilliantly talented, he is fun to watch, and he has been very noncontroversial up until this point. He is likely to bring crowds not only to Dodger Stadium this season, but to every city where he plays away games. He is a desperately needed shot in the arm. How much baseball is going to shrug and say "oh well" remains to be seen -- I think they'll try. But depending on what comes out, the league may well be forced into a position of looking more closely at this entire story, and at whether, in the best-case scenario, Ohtani did a very, very foolish thing by giving money directly to one of the few kinds of people he's not allowed to give money. And more importantly, it may bring to a crisis point the cozy relationship between leagues and the people who gamble on their games, and the question of whether that relationship is destined to create trouble over, and over, and over. Newsletter continues after sponsor message We Recommend Vinson Cunningham's Great Expectations is a novel about the 2008 election, which draws heavily on Cunningham's experience on the Obama campaign. It's about the disappointments of being closely involved in electoral politics, but it's also a close-up look at the interconnectedness of political and religious faith. I liked it a lot, and Cunningham talked about it with Brittany Luse on It's Been A Minute. When I was 17, right after Oprah promoted the Optifast shakes she used to lose a bunch of weight, I was put on that program by my doctor. As was the case for Oprah herself, it was not a long-term solution. Many years later, I remain aggravated by her involvement in the weight-loss industry, and I can't think of anyone more qualified to dig into it than Tressie McMillan Cottom. Netflix has a new season of Physical: 100, a show where 100 people are gradually narrowed down to a single winner over the course of a bunch of grueling competitions. When the first season aired, I was absolutely certain I would not be interested in it, and then I turned it on, and then I went into a trance, and then I lost a bunch of hours until it was over. Listen to the Podcast Sponsor-Free Support your favorite pop culture junkies AND listen without sponsor interruptions with a subscription to Pop Culture Happy Hour+! Learn more and sign up at plus.npr.org/happy. Learn More What We Did This Week Julio Torres wrote, directed and stars in 'Problemista.' A24 Glen, Janet W. Lee and Reanna Cruz talked about Problemista. The delightful Cate Young and Candice Lim joined me for a discussion of recent romantic comedies you can stream at home: Irish Wish, Anyone But You and Upgraded. Sydney Sweeney is a nun in Immaculate, and Aisha talked it over with Jordan Crucchiola. Chris Klimek joined Aisha and me to dig into the Road House remake you never knew you might have always wanted. Over at NPR Music, Stephen wrote about the Chappell Roan Tiny Desk Concert and brought his thoughts to New Music Friday. What's Making Us Happy Every week on the show, we talk about some other things out in the world that have been giving us joy lately. Here they are: Aisha Harris: Miami Connection (Also free on Roku Channel and Pluto TV) Chris Klimek: The podcast Blank Check Linda Holmes: Joel Kim Booster’s return to the podcast Depresh Mode Stream your local NPR station. Visit NPR.org to find your local station stream. Subscribe to Pop Culture Happy Hour+. Your support helps make our show possible and unlocks access to our sponsor-free episodes. What do you think of today's email? We'd love to hear your thoughts, questions and feedback: pchh@npr.org Enjoying this newsletter? Forward to a friend! They can sign up here. Looking for more great content? Check out all of our newsletter offerings — including Music, Books, Daily News and more! 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