Achi news desk-
Interpreter and close friend Shohei Ohtani was fired by the Los Angeles Dodgers following allegations of illegal gambling and theft by the Japanese baseball star.
Interpreter Ippei Mizuhara, 39, was dropped from the team on Wednesday following reports from the Los Angeles Times and ESPN about his alleged links to illegal bookmakers. The team is in Seoul this week as Ohtani makes his Dodgers debut, and Mizuhara was in the dugout in Los Angeles during its season-opening win over San Diego.
Mizuhara was seen regularly chatting with Ohtani, who was the Dodgers’ designated hitter, apparently discussing his plate appearances over a tablet computer.
“In response to recent media inquiries, we discovered that Shohei was the victim of a massive theft and we are turning the matter over to the authorities,” law firm Berk Brettler LLP said in a statement on Wednesday.
Sports gambling is illegal in California, even as 38 states and the District of Columbia allow some form of it.
Mizuhara is a familiar face to baseball fans as Ohtani’s constant companion, interpreting for him with the media and in other appearances since Ohtani came to the United States in 2017. He even served as Ohtani’s catcher during the Home Run Derby in the 2021 All-Star Game . When Ohtani left the Los Angeles Angels to sign a 10-year, $700 million contract with the Dodgers in December, the club also hired Mizuhara.
The Dodgers said in a statement that they are “aware of media reports and gathering information.
“The team can confirm that the translator at the time Ippei Mizuhara has been terminated,” the statement said. “The team has no further comment at this time.”
Ohtani was in the lineup for Thursday’s second game of the series, singling in the first inning as the Dodgers’ designated hitter.
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts confirmed that Mizuhara had a meeting with the team on Wednesday but declined to elaborate. He said he didn’t know where Mizuhara was and said a different interpreter was being used.
“Anything with that meeting, I can’t comment,” said Roberts, adding “Shohei is ready. I know he’s getting ready.”
Will Ireton, the Dodgers’ manager of performance operations, took to the mound in the first inning to translate for pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto. Ireton was Kenta Maeda’s translator with the team from 2016-18.
Security at the Gocheok Sky Dome was increased on Thursday, with police and dogs checking the concourses hours before the game started.
The Ohtani-interpreter news came a day after a bomb threat was reported against Ohtani. Police said they did not find any explosives.
On Tuesday, Mizuhara told ESPN that his bets are on international soccer, the NBA, the NFL and college football. MLB rules prohibit players and team employees from wagering – even legally on baseball – and also prohibit betting on other sports with illegal or offshore bookies.
“I never bet on baseball,” Mizuhara told ESPN. “That’s 100%. I knew that rule … We have a meeting about that in spring training.”
The Associated Press could not immediately reach Mizuhara for comment Wednesday.
Mizuhara was born in Japan and moved to the Los Angeles area in 1991 so his father could work as a chef. He attended Diamond Bar High School in east Los Angeles County and graduated from the University of California, Riverside in 2007.
After college, Mizuhara was hired by the Boston Red Sox as an interpreter for Japanese pitcher Hideki Okajima. In 2013, he returned to Japan to translate for English-speaking players on the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters. That’s where he first met Ohtani, who joined the team the same year.
After Ohtani signed with the Angels in 2017, the team hired Mizuhara to work as his personal interpreter. ESPN reported that Mizuhara told the outlet this week that he had been paid between $300,000 and $500,000 annually.
ESPN said it spoke with Mizuhara on Tuesday night, at which time the translator said Ohtani had paid off his gambling debts at Mizuhara’s request. After the statement from Ohtani’s attorneys that the player was the victim of a robbery, ESPN says that Mizuhara changed his story on Wednesday and claimed that Ohtani had no knowledge of the gambling debts and had not transferred any money to a bookie.
Mizuhara said he was more than $1 million in debt by the end of 2022 and that his losses have increased from there.
“I’m terrible (at gambling). Never going to do it again. Never won any money,” Mizuhara said. “That, I dug myself a hole and it kept getting bigger, and it meant I had to bet more to get out of it and kept losing. It’s like a snowball effect.”
It would be baseball’s biggest gambling scandal since Pete Rose agreed to a lifetime ban in 1989 after an MLB investigation by lawyer John Dowd found that Rose had placed numerous bets on the Cincinnati Reds to win from 1985-87 play for the team and manage it. .
MLB’s gambling policy is posted in each locker room. Betting on baseball is punishable by a one-year ban from the sport. The penalty for betting on other sports is illegal at the commissioner’s discretion.
Ohtani’s fame has spread around the world, even as the two-way player has remained largely media-shy. The news of his recent marriage to Mamiko Tanaka shocked fans from Japan to the U.S. While he had surgery on his right elbow last September and will not play this season, he will be used as a DH and there is a possibility that he will play in the field. He went 2 for 5 with an RBI in his Dodgers debut.
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