How Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter may have damaged the MLB star’s reputation

The Los Angeles Dodgers fired Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara, after it was suspected that Mizuhara was betting on sports with the MLB star’s money. The scandal has rocked the baseball world, and put Ohtani in an uncomfortable position.

Ohtani’s lawyers accused Mizuhara of stealing millions from the MLB star in order to gamble on sports with a bookmaker named Matthew Bowyer. According to ESPN and the Los Angeles Times, Bowyer had already been under federal investigation.

The narrative has shifted a couple of times since the story broke, as detailed by ESPN. Ohtani’s representatives initially stated that they lent Mizuhara the money to satisfy his gambling debt, which presumed the baseball star knew about Mizuhara’s wagering. They later changed course and said Ohtani was the victim of theft. Mizuhara claimed that Ohtani did not know about his betting habits.

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Additionally, Mizuhara initially said that Ohtani himself logged into his account to send money to Bowyer. Ohtani came out and said that this was simply not true.

Mizuhara told ESPN that he never bet on baseball, only soccer and football. He stated that his proximity to Ohtani and MLB made it very clear to him he could not bet on the sport he was affiliated with.

As baseball fans are aware, Ohtani signed a 10-year, $700 million contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers before the 2024 MLB season. He played his first six MLB seasons with the Los Angeles Angels, and Mizuhara was his interpreter for the entirety of that time.

However, the two met long before Ohtani played an MLB game. According to the Los Angeles Times, the two met when Mizuhara and Ohtani were both employed by the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters. Mizuhara was a translator for the team’s English-speaking players, and met Ohtani back in 2013 when he was only 18. The two have been associated ever since.

However, The Athletic wrote that the interpreter’s past has come into question. He apparently did not attend the University of California Riverside, or work for the Boston Red Sox, as was previously thought.

Former Los Angeles Angels manager Joe Maddon told Kyodo News in 2021 that Ohtani and Mizuhara go together like “peanut butter and jelly.” Maddon managed Ohtani from 2020 until midway through the 2022 season, and would have seen them together often.

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As reported by ESPN, Ohtani said, “I’m very sad and shocked that someone who I’ve trusted has done this.”

Ohtani also said through a new interpreter, “I never bet on baseball or any other sports or never asked somebody to do that on my behalf. I have never went through a bookmaker to bet on sports… I didn’t know that this was happening.”

David Vinturella is an instructor at the University of Las Vegas, Nevada, and believes that Ohtani may not have noticed large sums of money disappearing from his account. Vinturella told NBC Los Angeles, “A transfer of that amount is not unusual for a person making that type of money.”

Former FBI special agent Peter Grupe has other questions about Mizuhara and Ohtani’s interaction. “Who had authority to execute those wire transfers? Did the interpreter have authority for those wire transfers?” Grupe wondered to NBC Los Angeles.

Mizuhara told The Athletic in 2023 that he was with Ohtani, “365 days of the year…longer than I’m with my wife. So it’s going to be tough if you don’t get along on a personal level.”

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The Fort Worth Star Telegram wrote a piece in April 2024 titled “We all want to believe Shohei Ohtani. We all wanted to believe Pete Rose too.” It’s a line of thinking that might cause Ohtani’s reputation to be severely damaged, even if he wasn’t involved in any illegal transgressions.

The league is looking into the matter as of April 2024. MLB commissioner Rob Manfred told Fox Los Angeles that he does not know how long the investigation will take.