In shocking news out of Major League Baseball, the Los Angeles Dodgers fired Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter over concerning gambling and theft allegations.
According to ESPN, the allegations surround his interpreter, Ippei Mizhuara, and the amount of $4.5 million in wire transfers that were taken out of Shohei Ohtani’s bank account.
“Ippei Mizuhara, the longtime friend and interpreter for Ohtani, incurred the gambling debts to a Southern California bookmaking operation that is under federal investigation,” Tisha Thompson of ESPN said. “How he came to lose his job started with reporters asking questions bout the wire transfers.”
The details compiled appear to suggest that Mizuhara gave the game away while trying to talk to reporters. According to ESPN, a spokesperson “disavowed” the interpreter’s account of the story and later said they “discovered that Shohei Ohtani has been the victim of a massive theft.”
Mizuhara plainly stated that Ohtani “had zero involvement in betting” and that he “will never do sports betting ever again.” Sometimes it takes serious consequences to course correct, it seem.
Sports gambling and its sordidness has become a persistent topic in today’s world. It’s never particularly great when wires get crossed and it gets involved like this to this degree. Many have predicted that a big gambling scandal will go down, and some “smaller scale” ones have already happened.
Nonetheless, the MLB world had much to say about this situation.
[ESPN]
About Chris Novak
Chris Novak has been talking and writing about sports ever since he can remember. Previously, Novak wrote for and managed sites in the SB Nation network for nearly a decade from 2013-2022