Shohei Ohtani Possible Gambling Scandal
“During the 1919 World Series, the heavily-favored Chicago White Sox were stunned 5–3 in a best-of-9 series by the Cincinnati Reds. However, a year later, eight White Sox players were accused of conspiring with gamblers to lose the Fall Classic on purpose. They were all acquitted in a 1921 trial but were banned for life from professional baseball by then-commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis. Another involved MLB’s all-time hits leader Pete Rose, who received a lifetime ban from the sport in 1989 for betting on Cincinnati Reds games while he was a player/manager for the team. Rose, whose ban makes him ineligible for election to baseball’s hall of fame, admitted in his 2004 autobiography he bet on baseball while Reds manager and, three years later, told ESPN Radio he bet on the Reds to win every night. In 2023, Americans gambled a record $119.84 billion on sports, a 27.5% increase from the previous year, according to the American Gaming Association’s Commercial Gaming Revenue Tracker.” -Jacob Lev (CNN)
Why am I beginning this article with a history lesson from a CNN article? Because I want my readers to be well informed as to what has happened over the course of the history of baseball when gambling is involved. I want them to know the circumstances and the penalties leveled against those found to be gambling and fixing games in the MLB. Clearly Americans love to gamble and that is no secret, but when our national pastime is being tainted by gamblers, that’s an important issue. Especially in a sport that is supposedly dying and seems to look for new ways to make the game more exciting every year. Shorter basepaths for more steals, a juiced ball for more home runs or larger bases again this in hopes of more steals. More of what Major League Baseball’s researchers have deemed the most exciting plays in baseball. Even if I do agree with the pitch clock and that games were becoming ridiculously long, my previous point still stands.
If the game is already threatened by not being entertaining enough, then fixed games would do irreparable damage. When the 1918 White Sox fixed the World Series many people thought that was the beginning of the end of baseball. They thought this until Babe Ruth took the field and began hitting the ball out of the park on a consistent basis and most baseball historians will tell you that the Babe saved the sport. Players as famous as Pete Rose and Shoeless Joe Jackson were barred from the sport for life because of gambling.
Fast forward to right now in 2024 during one of the craziest off seasons I’ve seen in my 36 years of life. I’m a Giants fan, we began the off season thinking it would be like most years and we wouldn’t sign anybody too special. The Giants fanbase was very wrong, but my Giants were not the only team in the NL West spending money on big players. The Dodgers spent upwards of a billion dollars this off season, which I believe is more than I’ve ever seen a big league team spend in one year. The biggest move the Dodgers made was signing Shohei Ohtani to a 10 year, 700 million dollar deal. Admittedly, there is a clause that lets Ohtani get out of his current deal, but that comes in only if the team’s chairman, Mark Walter, or president of baseball operations, Andrew Friedman, leaves the team.
Why do I mention this? Because it has been speculated that there was a clause allowing Ohtani to opt out if his interpreter was fired or left the Dodgers organization, but this is untrue. However, Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter apparently has quite the gambling problem and has been allegedly stealing funds without Ohtani’s knowledge to cover bets. The amount stolen is believed to be 4.5 million dollars and all of it is believed to be related to gambling. As I’ve just explained and shown, the MLB does not take kindly to gambling scandals within the game.
Major League Baseball announced it has launched an investigation into the allegations surrounding Los Angeles Dodgers two-way star Shohei Ohtani and his longtime interpreter Ippei Mizuhara on Friday. So this means the investigation is not just limited to Mizuhara, but that Shohei Ohtani himself is also being investigated. His lawyers say the Dodgers superstar has allegedly been the victim of “massive theft,” reportedly accusing his now-former interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara, of taking funds from Ohtani to use for illegal gambling. This would imply that all of this was done without the knowledge of Ohtani and would exonerate him, but the results of the MLB’s investigation are yet to be seen.
If Shohei Ohtani is found to have been involved then the question becomes, does Ohtani get banned from baseball? It’s hard for me to believe that Ohtani has been working with Mizuhara since 2013, before he even left Japan, and that Ohtani didn’t know. They’re reportedly friends as well as having a business relationship and it’s not impossible that Shohei Ohtani got screwed over by a friend. It happens. But it’s a lot of money to simply go missing without a single person noticing. It was his interpreter stealing the money not his accountant and so how was Mizuhara covering his tracks when all of this money went missing? Is it possible that Shohei Ohtani’s lawyers are using Mizuhara as a scape goat so that Ohtani is able to avoid trouble? It’s possible, but for now it’s pure speculation.
That being said, if Shohei Ohtani is found to be involved and he doesn’t receive the same punishments handed down in the past, I won’t be the only angry baseball fan. Baseball has a long memory and in the world of baseball Pete Rose and Joe Jackson didn’t play that long ago. Not nearly long enough that we would forget and Pete Rose would never let anyone forget anyways. But I don’t like double standards and if Shohei Ohtani is found to have fixed games or gambled on games, then he should be barred from baseball. His contract with the Dodgers should be voided and he should never be allowed back. Otherwise Pete Rose should be reinstated and allowed to be voted into the Hall of Fame and Joe Jackson should be a Hall of Famer as well.
Even though I’m a Giants fan, I do not hope that Ohtani is fixing games or gambling. That would hurt the sport I love, but I want it understood that the penalty for gambling is a permanent ban. And Shohei Ohtani should not receive any kind of special treatment if the MLB investigation comes up with evidence of wrong doing on his part. I think Robert Manfred knows this, but I have my doubts about him doing what is in the best interest of the sport and more what is in the best interest of TV ratings and big money players. I truly hope Ohtani was not involved at all as that would make this a moot point and none of these possibilities would ever come to fruition.
By Zachary Casciato 2024 San Francisco
