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This Shohei Ohtani Story Just Took A MAJOR Turn – MLB Now Investigating. Wow.

Mar 23, 2024

This Shohei Ohtani – Ippei Mizuhara’s story is either much-ado about nothing or the biggest story in the history of sports/bookmaking.

Last week, Ohtani’s former translator was fired after a federal investigation into an illegal gambling ring run by Mark Boyer turned up 4.5 million in transactions directly from Ohtani himself.

This week, bettors, punters, and people in the know are pointing the finger (pinky finger for now) at Ohtani and his now disgraced translator as the fall guy. A new allegation by a world-famous bookie suggests the $4.5 m the feds say Ohtani paid were Ohtani’s losses from betting on soccer.

Ooopsie Doopsie.

This whole story smelled like shit from jump street:

  • Federal investigators announced that Shohei himself transferred $4.5 milly to a dude they busted in LA for an illegal bookmaking ring
  • Ohtani, his lawyers, and the Dodgers don’t say shit.
  • His Translator, Ippei Mizuhara, goes on ESPN for a one-hour mea culpa before the world knows anything. He says Shohei covered his debts, but he’s ashamed and has been fired.
  • A day later, Shohei’s agents say Shohei was a victim of “Massive Theft” by his best friend and translator and has been fired.
  • 3 days later, bookies are laughing at the story, including some who allege to know that those debts belong to Shohei, not Ippei.
  • MLB announces on a lazy Friday that they are investigating

Now, here’s the thing: Ippei was not and is not an employee of MLB. They can’t investigate him. When Manfred and MLB say they are investigating the “Matter,” they mean Ohtani. They only want to know whether he bet on Baseball – specifically his games. Because if he did…

Having baseball’s most prominent name in 100 years be in a ledger of an illegal bookmaking ring to the tune of $4.5 m is very, very bad. Worse? The cocked-up story and frog march Shoehi’s reps, Lawyers, and the LA Dodgers seem to be trying to tell in the face of a firehose of alternative versions of that story that seem to make WAY more fucking sense.

I don’t know ANY bookmaker (I know some) who extends that kind of credit to a professional translator making 300k a year unless the goal is to ruin the person. It just doesn’t happen. In that world, credit (private credit) is based on what you know the guy is good for. Ippei isn’t “good” for $4.5m in a revolving gambling line of credit, but Ohtani sure was and is.

IF Ohtani bet on games, holy shit. It will be the BIGGEST sports story in the history of sports. All of them. He’s a global megastar. Pete Rose was not. Manfred is either looking for ways to not lift the covers on this investigation, or he is praying Ippei is a shit gambler and Shohei is the most incredible human being on earth.

I know I would be hoping for the same thing…

 

 

Dean Blundell

Dean Blundell is a Canadian radio personality. Best known as a longtime morning host on CFNY-FM (The Edge) in Toronto, Ontario. In 2015 he was named the new morning host on sports radio station CJCL (Sportsnet 590 The Fan). Dean started his career in radio in 2001 and for nearly 20 years been entertaining the radio audience. Dean’s newest venture is the launch of his site and podcast which is gaining tremendous momentum across North America.

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