Shohei Ohtani’s long-time interpreter Ippei Mizuhara has reportedly been accused of a “massive theft” of Ohtani’s money, possibly in the MILLIONS of dollars. Moreover, the theft is allegedly tied to gambling.
The LA Times report:
Shohei Ohtani
My head is spinning on this one, because it sounds CRAZY. These two guys were always together, and Ippei Mizuhara had even developed something of a cult following in the baseball world, at least among Angels fans.
Oh, and you throw in the fact that you’re talking about Major League Baseball’s most famous player, the biggest international baseball superstar (ever?), all while he is making his debut with the Dodgers at a marquee season-opening event in Korea, and this is so wild. So, so wild.
From there, you start thinking about how Mizuhara was reportedly/allegedly stealing the funds to use for gambling purposes, and you wonder … was he betting on games involving Shohei Ohtani? Games for which he had inside knowledge? The mind starts to go to strange places, especially when there is so much money apparently at stake. (SEE UPDATES BELOW, as Mizuhara has said he did not bet on baseball.)
Dodgers on Shohei Ohtani and Ippei Mizuhara
There will be much more coming on this story. In fact, as I type, it looks like the Dodgers have already leapt into action:
One thing I’m wondering – how did Mizuhara even have access to millions of Ohtani’s dollars in the first place? Was he doing the books, too? I’m just confused on that part.
More soon.
ESPN’s Reporting and the Story Changes
UPDATE: What the … ESPN was preparing a story on this directly with Mizuhara last night, but then … something happened:
So โฆ initially Shohei Ohtani’s camp said the money was provided willing to cover debts, but then for some reason they disavowed that narrative and it turned into a theft?
This is only going to get more complex, and with a whole lot more in the way of allegations and cross-allegations, eh?
UPDATE 2: Obviously I’ve been thinking about this story all night. I’m trying to decide if the face value story would prevent any punishment for anyone: a guy thinks (mistakenly) that he’s betting legally on NON-baseball sports, racks up a ton of debt, asks his friend to cover it to get him out of trouble, and friend does. That’s the original story, anyway.
… but if that’s all true, then why was Mizuhara fired? Why the new(?) allegation of theft? Maybe the explanation would be that Mizuhara was lying all along, but if so, why would he and Ohtani still be joking around in the dugout AFTER the interview:
Maybe the timelines are just getting messed up because of the geographic differences? It’s already 10am Thursday in Korea, after all. Of course, timeline confusion isn’t going to explain why the story changed, or how an interpreter on a reported $300,000 to $500,000 annual salary was able to get upwards of $4.5 million in debt in the first place.
It’s worth saying explicitly if you haven’t read the ESPN piece: everyone involved denies that Shohei had anything to do with any of this (other than maybe paying the debt, or maybe just being the victim of theft). No betting. No contact. Etc. And again, the allegations here DO NOT INVOLVE betting on baseball. Mizuhara says he knows that’s forbidden, and he didn’t do it.
Like I said, there is probably so much more coming on this. The range of possible outcomes is quite wide, from “wow this is just a really crazy story, ok back to baseball” all the way up to “OK, so the Black Sox barely did anything actually.”