Say It Ain't Sho

The face of the sport shocked the baseball world by alleging his beloved interpreter stole millions from him to place illegal gambling bets.

Shohei Ohtani is flanked by his agent, Nez Balelo (left), and translator Ippei Mizuhara on the day he signed his 10-year, $700 million contract to play for the Dodgers. (Getty Images)

Hi friends-

This is an explosive and breaking story, so I’m prefacing this newsletter by saying that everything I write here might be rendered moot by dinnertime if new information comes out.

The 2024 MLB season kicked off with a bang in Seoul, Korea, when the Dodgers and Padres took the field at 3 a.m. PT on Wednesday. It took less than 12 hours for the warm and fuzzy buzz of baseball being back to be killed by a potentially league-crushing scandal.

The Los Angeles Times broke the story that Shohei Ohtani’s attorneys accused his interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara, of stealing millions of dollars from the superstar baseball player to place illegal bets with an alleged bookie who is under federal investigation.

ESPN quickly followed it up with a dizzying account of the situation, including quotes from an interview with Mizuhara on Tuesday, who then walked back the crux of much of what he said a day later. Here is what ESPN investigative reporter Tisha Thompson wrote in her bombshell story:

The Los Angeles Dodgers’ interpreter for Shohei Ohtani was fired Wednesday afternoon after questions surrounding at least $4.5 million in wire transfers sent from Ohtani's bank account to a bookmaking operation set off a series of events.

Ippei Mizuhara, the longtime friend and interpreter for Ohtani, incurred the gambling debts to a Southern California bookmaking operation that is under federal investigation, multiple sources told ESPN. How he came to lose his job started with reporters asking questions about the wire transfers.

Initially, a spokesman for Ohtani told ESPN the slugger had transferred the funds to cover Mizuhara’s gambling debt. The spokesman presented Mizuhara to ESPN for a 90-minute interview Tuesday night, during which Mizuhara laid out his account in great detail. However, as ESPN prepared to publish the story Wednesday, the spokesman disavowed Mizuhara's account and said Ohtani's lawyers would issue a statement.

Mizuhara initially told ESPN that he racked up millions in gambling debts on his own, and then went to Ohtani for help. “Obviously, he [Ohtani] wasn’t happy about it and said he would help me out to make sure I never do this again,” Mizuhara said. "He decided to pay it off for me.”

Mizuhara added that he never bet on baseball, that he did not know that what he was doing was illegal, and that Ohtani himself did not place any bets.

But before ESPN went to publish its report on Wednesday, Mizuhara changed his story. “On Wednesday afternoon, Mizuhara told ESPN that Ohtani had no knowledge of his gambling debts and that Ohtani had not transferred money to the bookmaker's associate,” Thompson wrote.

A law firm representing Ohtani then released the following statement: “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.”

There are a few reasons why this story is so potentially devastating.