Phil Mushnick
Big leagues
same time
Have you ever seen a house fire that doesn’t emit smoke?
However, you may be able to see this smokeless fire from miles and weeks away.
Since the moment 700 million dollar international star Shohei Ohtani’s former friend, Ippei Mizuhara was arrested for running a Godzilla-sized sports betting debt of at least $17 million with Ohtani’s money, executives from the banking, lending and brokerage businesses reached out to warn of a future cover-up.
In April, MLB quietly announced that Ohtani has been exonerated. He had nothing to do with it, so we were expected to believe that Mizuhara was unilaterally awarded millions of dollars in gambling house credits without his knowledge or even interest that his guarantee was independent of his close friendship with Ohtani.
He plays the ball!” by Ohtani MLB’s clearance triggered another round of “What the hell!” missives from people much more familiar with financial law than I, a simple mortgage borrower.
One of those contacts is a senior executive and compliance officer/investigator (an outspoken man) at a large East Coast financial firm who asked to remain anonymous.
From the beginning, long before Mizuhara pleaded guilty to theft in a California court, this guy predicted that MLB would give Ohtani a pass, one of those automatic intentional passes from the Rob Manfred era. Following Ohtani’s exoneration by the MLB, he continued:
“This is a completely obvious cover-up for MLB’s biggest star.
“Any time you transfer a cash amount over $10,000 in the US banking system, a SAR (Suspicious Activity Report) is triggered. This must be reviewed, reported and documented by multiple levels of bank management, from the branch system to the compliance department and even the legal department when there are multiple instances.
“These are Must comply affairs.
“These must then be reported to FinCEN (the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network administered by the US Treasury) whenever fraudulent activity is suspected.
“The boss here shouts ‘fraud!’ Red flags everywhere.
“Or are we to believe that there were, say, 34 transfers of $500,000 (for a total of $17 million) each to a well-known bookmaker or bookmakers and no one noticed? Impossible!”
Or are we to believe that the bookmakers waited until Mizuhara owed millions before trying to collect? What was his settlement figure, $5 million paid in $20 bills?
But the MLB has already made its decision: “After further review, the superstar is safe!”
TNT’s Smith deserves more love
It’s so predictably silly how the media operates. With NBA rights expected to move to NBC from TNTThere has been gnashing of teeth over what this could mean for the big-name panelists on TNT’s regular studio show. Carlos Barkley (Is he retiring? Unlikely.) and Shaquille O’Neal, who mostly kill time saying absentminded platitudes while exchanging mostly unfunny put-downs followed by forced laughter.
However, the man who pays attention and adds substance and applicable and appreciated knowledge to the game of the day, Kenny Smith, becomes an afterthought, an expendable discard.
And that is a number.
Thursday in Kansas City, The Yankees lost, 4-3with a two-run, two-out double by Maikel García down the left field line to end the game.
Although there were two notable fundamental reasons for DJ LeMahieu to protect the third base line (the winning run was at first and Garcia bats right-handed), LeMahieu played away from the bag, toward short.
Garcia then put him where LeMahieu logically should have been. Have decades of sound baseball strategy and new wave analysis eluded Aaron Boone and his staff?
There is no long, silly expression that is not copied and maintained by gaming broadcasters. Simply put, plain English is on the rise.
Teams that score more than one run in a half inning no longer “score two” or “score three.” It should be said like “put two points” or “three points”.
Last Sunday, Michael Kay was probably obligated under oath to tell us that “the Mets finished fourth,” as if he and others were going to say that in a casual conversation about baseball.
On Thursday, when Yanks-Royals finished with a two-run, two-out double, all relevant parties ran as fast as possible, including Yankees left fielder Alex Verdugo. Of course, that was soon described as a “double out.” One size.
Box Scores of the Week: In a 5-3 loss to Cleveland on Tuesday, the Reds used seven pitchers. Only one, Buck Farmer, was allowed to complete up to two innings.
In the 9-3 win against the Padres, the Diamondbacks used seven pitchers. See how that “must face three batters” rule is working?
I’m sure it was said during the next Reds and D’backs game that their bullpens are depleted and they need their starters to “go deep,” which now means five or six innings.
Detecting some illegal eavesdropping
A note here on Friday, about how Edmonton’s Darnell Nurse leaned over the boards from his seat at the other end of the bench to hear what iceside analyst Ray Ferraro was saying about him to the NBA Finals audience. ESPN’s Stanley Cup, reminded me of a similar collision. of circumstances when I covered the Cosmos soccer team 45 years ago.
The Cosmos had a Belgian winger, Francois Van der Elst. After the game, and I think it was in Edmonton (unless he just want believe that) — German Cosmos coach Hennes Weisweiler, grumpy, snarling and humorless, spoke of Van der Elst’s game in unflattering terms.
Since The Post was then an afternoon newspaper, I was able to return to my room at the team hotel to write my story. I left my hotel door wide open so I wouldn’t have to answer any knocks, just walk in.
While I transcribe Weisweiler’s negative comments about Van der Elst, who comes in? Van der Elst. “I was writing about you,” I said. He asked me what I was writing, so I read him Weisweiler’s quotes.
Van der Elst proceeded to angrily refute, on record, every word his coach had said about him, quote by quote. Very strange, like King George III participating in the drafting of the Declaration of Independence.
CBS’s Jim Nantz never tires of letting Tiger Woods destroy his credibility.
Last Sunday, Scotty Scheffler he had just won The Memorial, further cementing his status as the current best golfer in the world.
But when Scheffler approached the tournament’s annual host, Jack Nicklaus, to exchange a respectful handshake, Nantz saw fit to tell us that Woods, who had nothing to do with this moment, shook Nicklaus’s hand “five times” after win the Memorial. And it’s too late to shout “Enough!”
Two weeks later The death of Bill Walton., emails arrived attesting to their kindness. Two stand out for the same reason: one from a man who, as a child, worked as a stadium parking lot attendant; the other from a colleague who worked in security at an equipment and media entrance.
They both wrote that Walton stopped to introduce himself when he entered, as if he didn’t know who he was, and then made sure to say thank you and say goodbye as he left.