The Los Angeles Dodgers fired superstar Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter Ippei Mizuhara on Wednesday.
The highest baseball league in the United States MLB began an investigation on Fridaywhich concerns the superstar of the sport Shohei Ohtani29, and especially his longtime interpreter and friend Ippei Mizuhara act.
According to media reports, Ohtani, who signed the highest-paid individual contract in sports history with the Los Angeles Dodgers in December, has been transferred from his account 4.5 million dollars for a bookie under federal investigation.
Sports betting is illegal in the Dodgers’ home state of California.
Mizuhara, the interpreter of Ohtani, one of the biggest stars in baseball, got hooked on betting in 2021. At the beginning of 2023, the debt had already accumulated four million dollars, when Mizuhara asked for help from Ohtani, who agreed to help with the payments, ESPN reports.
– I explained my situation. He was not happy but agreed to help me. I told him I need money to pay off my debt. He didn’t know it was anything illegal, Mizuhara said.
– I’m terribly bad at betting. I will never do that again. I never won any money. I dug myself a hole that got bigger and bigger, meaning I had to bet bigger sums to get dry, it was like a snowball effect.
The interpreter emphasized that Ohtani was not involved or aware of the betting. Mizuhara said he never bet on baseball, but on basketball’s NBA, American football’s NFL and international soccer matches.
According to MLB rules, baseball betting results in a one-year penalty for those working in the league. Punishments related to other sports betting are decided by the commissioner of the series.
The MLB season started with two meetings between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the San Diego Padres played in South Korea. The Dodgers won the first game on Wednesday 5–2, the Padres won the second on Thursday 15–11. Mizuhara was on the game trip.
Mizuhara was fired by the Dodgers on Wednesday after reports of betting began circulating in the media and Ohtani’s representatives claimed the superstar was the victim of a “massive robbery.”
– We will take the matter to the authorities, the law firm representing Ohtani told.
Baseball’s last major betting scandal was in 1989, when the manager of the MLB team Cincinnati Reds Peter Rose was banned for life. Between 1985 and 1987, he made several bets that the team would win.