and in a new book out tomorrow journalist Keith O'Brien says that the parallels between otani's interpreter and Pete Rose's gambling uh Scandal our uncanny Keith O'Brien joins us he's uh this morning he's the author of Charlie Hustle the rise and fall of Pete Rose in the last Glory Days uh of baseball went to a great High School I understand Keith uh a former bomber same high school as you Joe same High School uh where I went trying to think if you you grew up in the 70s you were you at of age t
o watch what kind of player Pete Rose was in the Big Red Machine yeah so I was too young to remember the Big Red Machine years 7576 but I'm in the Wheelhouse of my Boyhood love for baseball in 1984 when he's traded back to the Reds and and of course I remember everything after that both the good and the bad and there was both in the 19 if you grow up in Cincinnati you can't escape uh I guess a lot of towns that's what it that's what it's like uh with baseball when you're a kid it was amazing but
you did miss out a little bit on I mean Morgan bench Perez all those guys how does this I don't understand uh the similarties and I remember you know Pete Rose I remember what happened was it just on the Reds was it ever against the Reds when he was controlling who the starting pitchers were I mean it all made a difference and it was Giamatti who now there's a more famous Giamatti now but the guys so many weird things happened Keith but what are the parallels well I mean as as you said the para
llels between what's happening today and what happened 35 years ago are are significant to be clear you know there's no indication that sh Otani or his interpreter uh was betting on baseball and that was what of course Pete Rose uh was accused of and was doing in the 1980s but the way it's all unfolding right now is incredibly similar it's weird there's some weird things that we don't understand and it's been a long time before sh Otani is going to be speaking to the Press well and this is just
undoubtedly already no matter what the details are it is already the greatest uh gambling scandal in baseball since Pete Rose 35 years ago and you know it it just like 35 years ago it's the Press who is breaking the news it's a federal investigation you know around uh the the inner circle of the player these are the things that started to unravel Pete's World in 1989 wasn't on DraftKings either and when it's uh that's that's not a great or can be a a risky component of society when you're dealin
g with I mean these are underworld figures you're dealing with aren't they or they Pete dealt with these were these were not legal bets that were being placed well Pete obviously in in the 1980ies well and the same thing is alleged today you know and and there's a reason let's be clear there's a reason why a player or someone from his inner circle would be betting with an illegal bookie rather than on DraftKings and that is Major League Baseball the NFL all the leagues are are hiring uh thirdpar
ty contractors who are monitoring wagering on legal platforms they they can flag in a in in a matter of minutes uh if someone is placing a bet on a game inside a clubhouse someone connected to a player so if one did want to bet today uh as Pete Rose once did the only way to do it is to go to the underworld and you know we all know now that legal gambling is a major industry you know $120 billion dollar was legally wagered on Sports last year but also roughly every year about $60 billion is illeg
ally wagered on Sports and so those bookies are still operating in the Underworld but the underworld today isn't back alleys or smokey barrooms it's you know some of these bookies today illegal bookies have glossy websites just like DraftKings and FanDuel and the others what do we know about was was show he himself behind the the Wagers what what do we know exactly at this point so the the fact is we don't know much um you know the story has changed several times just in the past 5 days um what
what we know at this hour is that uh uh someone whether it was uh sh Otani or his interpreter uh paid off a significant debt allegedly to an illegal bookmaker this reportedly is a figure of millions of dollars 4.5 million doll uh you know it's so it's a it's a an enormous amount of money surrounding uh the biggest star and in baseball sto was it stolen from him or was it or was that just the story to cover up the gambling who knows who knows and and and that that's why it will be interesting to
see what sh does or does not say today just as it was interesting 35 years ago to see what Pete Rose would or would not say about what was happening in his inner circle at that time and that's another you know key parallel here you know Pete often uh and rarely actually placed his own bets on Sports he was always using guys in his inner circle and it was Federal investigations around these men Pete's friends and and and cohorts that led to Pete's downfall um the feds weren't looking into Pete Ro
se in 1988 they were looking into the men around him and that's what led to the knowledge of what Pete Rose was doing back then four and a half is a lot of money four and a half million what did he sign with with the Dodgers $700 million so let's keep that in perspective not a lot for him but it would be a lot for his interpreter it would to get caught into were actually bets coming I've heard about guys you know we don't don't need to name names but when they're in Vegas you know some basketbal
l guy $500,000 unless you're betting on baseball games which you don't know and it's a lot of money and um they're I think it's weird that they're both so amazingly I mean Pete no one's ever getting 4200 hits I don't think in ever that's a that's like 20 seasons of 200 hits it's it's an incredible figure and and just to put it in perspective I mean the active leader in baseball today the the active hit leader has roughly half of that and he's in his late 30s and so this is a record that's never
going to fall it was a record that people didn't think was going to fall in the first place you know when ta cob first held it another piece of work too cuz Pete is it believe I I were from the you were born on the west side but I don't really think you're from the west side I know yeah that's see this we're now we're having a Cincinnati conversation and I'm definitely from over I used to see Pete around cuz he went to West High which is right up the street from my house he had a Corvette um he
was he's just a real interesting guy but um both of them incredibly talented does this are the Dodgers bummed like is this going to be in his head uh this year do you think is this going to get in the way of of what they paid for they pay paid for a lot to have this guy they won a World Series uh badly right I mean for forget about the Dodgers for a second I believe Major League Baseball is incredibly disappointed again this is the most recognizable the most famous baseball star in the world uh
you know and and you know just as Pete Rose once was in 1989 I mean Pete Rose in 1989 was like a an aging version this has to be handled right
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