Surely, at some point, though, the size of the payments Mizuhara was asking for would raise big red flags even with a nice guy like Ohtani? I mean, you gotta ask what $4 million is for…
It’s one thing if the interpreter lies and says “I need $400,000 to buy a house” - and even then that should be something that would lead to re-verification later on, like Ohtani asking him, “So hey, how’s that house in Santa Monica doing? Show me the pictures.” It’s another thing to ask for four million.
It’s not like the interpreter was asking for money for groceries.
I see three major issues that are likely confounding the story. The first, of course, is how reliable the interpreter is on his own story. The second is how reliable the interpreter was as an interpreter. The first can come out in the legal process, the second as well, but I’m wondering why we’ve not heard more from an independent translator. The third is I wonder how much of a cultural gap is being displayed. Not just in how to translate a very different language but in mindset including friendships.
I’m hoping this was Ohtani trying to be a good friend and being overly credulous and being screwed over. I’m not going to have any other real opinions on it until there’s actual investigation done and a report written.
I mean…at that point Ohtani knew that millions of dollars had vanished from his account. Presumably Mizuhara was the only one other than Ohtani himself to have access to that account. Not being suspicious of Mizuhara at that point seems to go well beyond “trying to be a good friend and being overly credulous”.
We don’t really know what Ohtani knew and when he knew it. So it was basically, spokesman goes to interpreter to get Ohtani’s story. Interpreter goes to Ohtani and asks him what he what’s for dinner. Interpreter comes back and says Ohtani gave him the money.
But Ohtani had just gone out and hired this spokesman to deal with this specific situation, so he must have at least known the money was missing at that point. If he didn’t send it himself, then it must have been stolen, and presumably Mizuhari was the only logical suspect. Seems like for both Ohtani and the spokesman to see no problem with Mizuhari being the spokesman’s only source of information is…hard to believe.
Also kind of hard to see what Mizuhara would have to gain telling a story that was certain to fall apart within a few hours. I’m not leaning too hard on that because gamblers and people about to get arrested for Federal crimes are known to act irrationally and desperately at times. But Occam’s razor would suggest that Mizuhara made his initial statements with the expectation Ohtani would back him up.
I haven’t been able to find anything about who specifically hired the spokesman. The ESPN timeline says they contacted his agent and then the spokesman responded.
It’s absolutely not “okay to do in Japan”. It’s a huge deal in NPB*. Less than 10 years ago, three pitchers from the Yomiuri Giants were effectively insta-fired (indefinitely disqualified from the league, and also from the MLB and the pro leagues of South Korea, Taiwan, and China) for gambling on NPB and MLB games. They’re still out. In theory, they could apply to be re-admitted to the league but AFAIK they haven’t succeeded yet. Also their team was fined 10 million Yen and one of their execs (the team’s day-to-day representative in the league office) resigned.
There is no way Japanese professional baseball is any more lax on gambling than the MLB is.
*Nippon Professional Baseball, for those of you who are unfamiliar with Japanese pro baseball.
Wherever Ohtani got the idea that gambling on baseball was cool and okay, it absolutely was not from his time with Hokkaido.
But MLB is perfectly fine with players betting on OTHER sports (as long as they do it legally). Seems odd to me; why not just keep the players isolated from that world entirely?
So a bookie in Ohtani’s hometown accepts a million dollar bet and loses because Ohtani has an uncharacteristically bad game on both sides of the ball. A year later, the same bookie accepts a 4.2 million dollar bet on another Ohtani start? I mean, it sounds absurd, or am I naive about sports betting? Are million dollar bets on MLB games routine in Mizusawa and other places?
I really hope that whatever this is, it doesn’t mean the end of Shohei in MLB. I don’t want him gone; I want to beat him on the field. I want Jasson Dominguez to hit a grand slam off him in game 7 of some future World Series.
I think it is plausible he didn’t notice. It is not that uncommon for sports stars to be swindled out of large sum of cash. Ohtani may be a person who doesn’t really care about about the details of his money and is happy to let other people manage it. 4 million also seems like a big number, but it a very small percentage of Ohtani’s net worth.
I think at this point, the most likely scenario is Ohtani is being truthful as it would be pretty easy to disprove him is he isn’t.
There’s no reason a player should not be allowed to gamble on a sport he has no effect or participation in.
Not that I’m saying Ohtani was gambling; that is very much unproven right now. But if Ohtani HAD wanted to place bets (legally) on NFL, Premier League, NBA, hockey games, I see no reason why MLB should not permit it.
Of course when one hears of a pro athlete having dealings with a bookie, the first suspicion is that they’re throwing games and splitting a profit. But that doesn’t make sense here: If that were the case, it’d be the bookie paying Ohtani, not the other way around.
Not necessarily. It could be something like degenerate gambler loses shirt and then bookie offers to clear debt in exchange for said degenerate playing a poor game or two. Very unlikely in this case of course, as Ohtani should be worth enough to shoulder even very heavy gambling debts (for awhile). I mean Charles Barkley was a degenerate gambler but has only admitted to losing ~$20 million lifetime (he could well be lying).
$400k would a down payment for a nice home in Santa Monica.
What the fuck is wrong with you? He does speak English and is more than fluent enough to have casual conversations and make it around California on his own. For more important things, he feels more comfortable with an interpreter. He was really more of a personal assistant who performed interpreting as part of his job.
