Baseball season is underway.
But the season began under a cloud of scandal.
And one top baseball star’s career could be ruined in this criminal investigation.
Dodgers fire interpreter for superstar Shohei Ohtani in gambling probe
Baseball hadn’t seen anything like Japanese sensation Shohei Ohtani since the days of Babe Ruth.
Ohtani signed a record $700 million contract with the Dodgers in the offseason after winning his second American League Most Valuable Player award in a year in which he won 10 games, pitching to a 3.14 earned run average while also slugging 44 home runs.
But now a criminal investigation hovers over Ohtani and the Dodgers involving Ohtani’s longtime interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara.
The Dodgers fired Mizuhara after ESPN learned Mizuhara allegedly made several wire payments to a Southern California bookmaker named Matthew Boyer.
Mizuhara spoke to ESPN’s Tisha Thompson and claimed Ohtani authorized the wire payments to help him cover his gambling debts.
“Obviously, he [Ohtani] wasn’t happy about it and said he would help me out to make sure I never do this again,” Mizuhara told Thompson. “He decided to pay it off for me.”
Mizuhara claimed Ohtani had nothing to do with the bets and that he never crossed the big red line of actually betting on baseball.
“I want everyone to know Shohei had zero involvement in betting. I want people to know I did not know this was illegal. I learned my lesson the hard way. I will never do sports betting ever again,” Mizuhara continued.
“I never bet on baseball,” Mizuhara added. “That’s 100%. I knew that rule . . . We have a meeting about that in spring training.”
Betting on baseball is the big no-no because a gambling scandal nearly destroyed the sport when eight members of the 1919 “Chicago Black Sox” accepted money to fix the World Series.
The story changed
24 hours later, Ohtani’s lawyers changed their tune and claimed Mizuhara allegedly stole the money from Ohtani to cover his gambling debts.
“In the course of responding to recent media inquiries, we discovered that Shohei has been the victim of a massive theft, and we are turning the matter over to the authorities,” a statement from Berk Brettler LLP read.
Fox Sports One host Craig Carton theorized that the Ohtani changed his story because under baseball’s collective bargaining agreement, if Ohtani had knowledge of payments made to illegal bookmakers – California is one state where gambling isn’t legalized – then MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred would suspend him and potentially void his contract.
“Ippei Mizuhara claims that Ohtani covered his nearly 5 million dollar gambling loss as a favor – Ohtani camp makes Ippei available for interview and all parties agree thats what happened -Ohtani and Ippei are seen at end of game vs Padres exchanging what looks like pleasant small chat so all appears good – then it dawns on someone that if true Ohtani must be suspended by MLB immediately because him wiring money to a known bookie runs afoul of the MLB/MLBPA CBA on gambling – so hours after they tell one story they now claim that Ippei stole the millions of dollars from Ohtani,” Carton’s post on social media began.
Carton continued, “Problem with that is the money wasn’t cash that you could tangibly throw in a bag and steal it was a wire and there is no way the guy could have wired money from an Ohtani account without Ohtani signing off on it but it’s their only play to avoid Ohtani being suspended and possibly having his Dodgers contract voided. This is gonna get very messy before it goes away.”
The changing stories within the span of a day, and the suspicious nature of the allegations that threaten baseball’s biggest star, have fans and observers not believing anything at the moment.
Boyer is under federal investigation, and the allegation that Mizuhara stole from Ohtani means he will be as well.
Will the truth finally come out in the wash?
