Major League Baseball scandal: Shohei Ohtani and his interpreter are under investigation in an illegal betting complaint

THE Major league baseball (MLB for its acronym in English) has opened a formal investigation into the main figure of Los Angeles Dodgers, the Japanese Shohei Ohtani and Ippei Mizuhara, who was his translator before the Los Angeles franchise decided to fire him last Wednesday amid a major scandal. Ohtani’s lawyers claimed that the Japanese star was the victim of a “massive theft”.

“The Major League has been gathering information since we learned from the media about the allegations involving Shohei Ohtani and Ippei (Mizuhara).” the commissioner’s office said in a statement released last Friday, following articles published by the Los Angeles Times and ESPN incriminating the two. “Today our investigations department has begun the formal investigation process.”

Ohtani and the Dodgers were in Seoul, South Korea, for their series opener against the San Diego Padres when the first reports came out. The teams returned to the United States after Thursday night’s game (a 15-11 loss) and MLB did not comment publicly until the investigation was announced, which also puts the spotlight on Mathew Bowyer, the alleged illegal bookmaker.

Ohtani quietly left South Korea and has so far made no statement about it. Meanwhile, Mizuhara, a personal translator and close friend of the Dodgers’ designated hitter, told ESPN on Tuesday that he has bet on international soccer, the NBA, the NFL and college football.

MLB rules prohibit players and team employees from betting, even legally, in baseball and also ban betting on other sports with illegal or offshore betting houses. It is punishable by a one-year disqualification from the sport. In other sports, however, the sanction is at the discretion of the commissioner.

“I’m a (gambling) mess. I will not do that. I never made any money,” Mizuhara said. “I put myself in a hole and made things worse. I bet more to get out of it and kept losing. “It’s like a snowball.” He added.

This is the biggest baseball betting scandal since then Pietro Rosa accepted a lifetime ban in 1989, after an investigation for MLB by attorney John Dowd found that Rose had made numerous bets on the Cincinnati Reds to win from 1985 to 1987 while playing and managing that same team.

Source: agencies