Same.
At least at the moment it seems hard to see a way that Ohtani doesn’t get punished for this.
Shohei Ohtani’s attorneys accuse interpreter of ‘massive theft’ tied to alleged gambling
- Thread starter soxhop411
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At least at the moment it seems hard to see a way that Ohtani doesn’t get punished for this.
Thanks for the background on the relationship. Ohtani may well be trying to cover up for his friend as best as he can given the situation, but if Mizuhara did indeed steal from his friend (and that may not be the case) I'm still curious about his access to that amount of Ohtani's money.
Who translates for Ohtani now? Roberts was born in Japan but is he fluent? Will Shohei miss signs? Coaching?
Per the story, the entire amount was wired direct to the bookie's associate, and not through Mizuhara's account to then be paid to the bookie. I highly doubt that Mizuhara had some side deal with the associate to cut a few mil out of the wire to pass back to him. And second, if Mizuhara was cutting it off the top why not just wire to his personal account and then pay the associate out of this? His cover was better legally and to keep Ohtani in the dark longer if the wire went through him rather than direct to the associate. That's why this doesn't smell right.
Word going around is that YY's guy would do it but he's not in the dugout tonight. (I wonder if that's why he got hammered in the 1st)
So either Ohtani's interpreter is a mule to place bets on Ohtani's behalf or the story is somewhat true and when Ohtani realized transferring the money to cover the debts was illegal the story changed to keep Ohtani out of it as best as possible.
The sideline reporter for the Seoul series, a former interpreter himself, shared some of his personal experience as an interpreter. He said the most difficult part of the job was away from the stadium. He would go with the player to help purchase cars, apply for credit cards and set up bank accounts among other things. Seems very much like a personal assistant of sorts, so I guess there would be a path to gaining access, but there are still a lot of pieces here that don't seem to fit.
Same here. Given that they granted the media interview with the interpreter and then disavowed his account seems like someone had an "Oh shit" moment when they realized the story implicated Ohtani.
He probably meant difficult in that it's more than just showing up at the park for interviews and doing translator stuff. He didn't seem to be speaking in defense, but rather just shedding light on the other aspects of the job.
https://dodgerblue.com/will-ireton-becoming-shohei-ohtanis-new-interpreter-with-dodgers/2024/03/21/
Will Ireton is for now. He made a mound visit in the 1st and was between YY and Dave Roberts.
This is a great point I hadn't considered before. I hadn't really thought of it, but bets (and a betting credit line) aren't a limited or rival resource. Bookies need to collect from losers to pay the winners or the whole thing doesn't work, but other than that, there's not much downside to letting a guy dig himself as deep a hole as he wants and seeing how much you can leverage out of him when he hits bottom.
I guess the counterpoint would be, you might be likelier to collect when he's only a little in the hole, than when he's big in the hole, but that's a theory (based on how collections works in other industries, like utilities), and could be wrong for bookies.
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Sorry i have a hard time believing a group of people who have already changed their tune multiple times. Baseball has a clear incentive in the way of billions possible trillions of dollars to cover this over and make it go away. In the end the obvious is usually the truth and that's Ohtani had this guy place his bets for him, if MLB follows their own rule book that is a 1 year suspension.
It’s probably bad form for Bres to pick up the phone and see what the Sox can get from the Dodgers for Masa?
How long do you wait, 3 days?
How long do you wait, 3 days?
My only other thought was Ohtani just saying, fuck it, I'll pay it directly so that I know it's paid. Rather than giving the"gambler" the funds to pay it and hoping that he does it
Honestly, this just makes me sad. Ohtani has been such a positive for baseball in every way the last few years. The most exciting player of my lifetime, and seemingly good-natured, likeable, and unselfish. Even if he was just paying off his friend's debts, there's still some tarnish there now that won't ever completely go away.
I agree the league will be doing all it can to minimize the situation. But this happening now is also the WORST possible time for MLB to sweep it under the rug. If it happened late season or early offseason, there would be a lot of perceived "investigation" happening and MLB could come back 3 months later and say 'we did a thorough investigation and could not find anything conclusively, so our hands are tied based on the CBA and we can't suspend Ohtani at this time.'
Criminally, IF Ohtani bet himself and the feds put him in a corner (they have a tendency to do that with high profile offenders to help their case against the ringleader), the real concern for him is the legal process which could shake out team or MLB penalties. Either Ohtani doesn't flip and is found guilty/confesses to the illegal betting and gets more than a misdemeanor, then the Dodgers could be at liberty to revoke his contract depending on language (not meaning they will)...Or Ohtani avoids any criminal liability by testifying against the gambling syndicate and this obligates him to acknowledge he gambled illegally under oath, opening up an MLB suspension.
But legally it is more likely than not this ends up being a nothingburger with those in the syndicate pleading guilty and the feds not bothering to pursue the Ohtani/interpreter angle. And as noted above MLB won't treat this with the severity of some bench player doing the same.
This is plausible, but also reveals he lied when changing the initial story given by the interpreter, for the purpose of insinuating he had no knowledge of the payments. So it is really not a WIN if that is determined to be the truth. His team will have lied in the press AND whether being in the know or not there is the act of payment for illegal gambling activity.
QFT. While not affecting Tiger's career more than the injuries that started his downhill slide, I was never able to root quite as hard for him after his off-the-course affairs. And that was just a character flaw while not breaking any league rules, whereas Ohtani's mistake(s) may also step afoul of MLB rules. Sex and gambling can be dangerous games, kids.
MLB wants this to go away just as much as Shohei does.
An interesting read on Twitter... (Apologies if it's been posted)
View: https://twitter.com/craigcartonlive/status/1770758215300485589
Full transcript of multiple posts:
Ohtani story is a real problem 1- $ being wired to bookie warrants immediate suspension it violates CBA 2- Claiming theft means his friend is facing jail time 3- Compulsive gambler losing like that would try to get whole by betting on sport he knows most which would be baseball
From a legal perspective The Ohtani camp changing its tune from Ohtani helping a friend to Ohtani being the victim of theft/fraud changes the game completely for the interpreter because he is now subject to criminal charges for wire fraud and embezzlement
and is looking at a prison sentence - being a team guy and taking the fall which results in losing your job is one thing taking the fall and losing your freedom is something else entirely and this story is not going away any time soon
Ippei Mizuhara claims that Ohtani covered his nearly 5 million dollar gambling loss as a favor - Ohtani camp makes Ippei available for interview and all parties agree thats what happened -Ohtani and Ippei are seen at end of game vs Padres exchanging what looks like pleasant small
chat so all appears good - then it dawns on someone that if true Ohtani must be suspended by MLB immediately because him wiring money to a known bookie runs afoul of the MLB/MLBPA CBA on gambling - so hours after they tell one story they now claim that Ippei stole the millions of
dollars from Ohtani - problem with that is the money wasn't cash that you could tangibly throw in a bag and steal it was a wire and there is no way the guy could have wired money from an Ohtani account without Ohtani signing off on it but it's their only play to avoid Ohtani
being suspended and possibly having his Dodgers contract voided. This is gonna get very messy before it goes away
Let's keep the discussion on the story, possible implications for Ohtani, the Dodgers, and baseball.
Thanks.
Thanks.
This is admittedly putting the cart way out there, but Ohtani has a visa, correct? Criminal issues and visas do not mix well.
"Under no investigation" might be the most insane and damning thing I've read.
I have no idea how this played out. And it doesn't seem like anyone in the public does either. There simply must be an investigation. How could there not be?
Imagine? Easily.
I can see it for a couple of reasons. We have no idea of the actual facts right now. First, if it turns out that Ohtani was betting on sports illegally, it will come out whether or not it's MLB that does the digging. Especially given it seems like the feds will probably be sniffing around. We don't know what will be found or by whom, but the facts will start to take shape one way or another.
And if MLB were to become aware that Ohtani violated its own gambling rules and that it then sat on that, it potentially opens up a whole other can of worms. And God forbid he ever bet on baseball. Pete Rose's supporters are probably pretty gleeful to see this happen as it is....
Anyway, I want none of that to be true, I'm hoping his hands are relatively clean, and that he continues what should be a fantastic MLB career.
In case you were asking about imagining the fallout, yeah, and it's not pretty.
Personally, I think the whole Dodgers team should be suspended for the year.
Jokes aside, I am going to assume MLB does everything within its power - legally and not - to absolve Ohtani of any wrong doing. MLB has far too much to lose with punishing him and won't do anything that would cause him to miss time. IMO.
Jokes aside, I am going to assume MLB does everything within its power - legally and not - to absolve Ohtani of any wrong doing. MLB has far too much to lose with punishing him and won't do anything that would cause him to miss time. IMO.
"Investigation" is probably a term of art in MLB with a specific meaning and specific acts by specific actors. So when/if MLB says "no investigation" it probably does not mean that no one within MLB is looking very deeply into this.
Right now what needs to happen is for every player to ever be clipped by MLB for gambling start coming out and hammering the league publically as they will deserve it for trying to cover this up. I think it is crystal clear right now that the league is working hard to try and excuse this and make it go away.
Oh c'mon. The league should bury this unless Ohtani was throwing games.
Look, the league decided it wants to build a lucrative advertising relationship with all these gambling entities. It's big money. And so is Shohei. And beyond all that, I don't know why anyone should care about decisions made by people running the sport years ago. They're dead and gone.
I believe that Rose is the last player/coach sanctioned for gambling, under (at the moment) what were very different circumstances.
Sure, but a few things:
- In this specific case, the bookie might have known where the money was coming from (if Ohtani was placing the bets) or that this guy had a super rich bestie he could lean on.
- Illegal bookies have more ways of...um...incetivizing people to pay than legal books do. Even if they're not up for breaking kneecaps, there are other things they can do to make someone's life a living hell. I also know people who have done the reverse when a local bookie stops paying.
- They always have the option of cutting a deal and letting the gambler out for less than the insurmountable debt which they accrued.
I'll agree with a slight change: The league should bury this unless Ohtani was betting on baseball. In any form or under whatever complex machinations. They draw a bright line at that, post it super prominently in every clubhouse, and have held that bright line for over 100 years, up to and including excommunicating a popular and charismatic would-be HOFer over it. There is nobody who is unclear on that point, or what the penalties are for it.
As long as he wasn't betting on baseball, MLB should be helping him with his defensive strategy to keep the Feds off him, and I agree the league shouldn't care. Betting with illegal bookies is malum-prohibitum, not malum-in-se, in my eyes. It's not great, he should maybe still get a slap on the wrist (or else their deep-pocketed gambling partners will get angry at them essentially helping "The competition", I suppose), but it doesn't call the league's integrity into question. If he was betting on baseball, though, they'd need to react really strongly, or else it's a green light to everyone else that they don't really mean what they say on the signs, and the league really really can't open that Pandora's box. Not even Shohei Ohtani is valuable enough to them to be worth the downsides of crossing that line.
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Yeah, IIRC doesn't MLB normally let legal investigations play out before they announce any sort of internal investigations? That doesn't mean they aren't looking into things in conjunction with legal authorities, but I think saying that they are not investigating things on their own is a way to avoid statements that might conflict with the legal process.
Yeah, No. There's zero chance Manfred's advisors are saying, "It would be great if we could go all out to obscure Ohtani's involvement in a criminal nexus which is currently being investigated by the Feds. Like maybe getting his translator to double down on a false story!"
And of course, this does potentially call baseball's integrity into question. You can't have a major player -a starting pitcher no less- into an illegal bookie's hooks. (Frankly, I don't understand why they think that's OK for a legal bookie, but whatever.) Because the obvious inference is that the bookie might be paid off by the player tanking in a game. Just a random game, and nothing necessarily dramatic.
I'm comfortable in waiting on the facts, because there could be a somewhat-innocent explanation here. But it needs to be explained, and not just from the moral end. Legal gambling on baseball is big big money. You can't have the implication out there that players might be throwing games if they compromise their earnings by falling in love with the wrong college hoops team.
I can't believe people think this is potentially no big deal. It's arguably the worst thing possible for the integrity of the sport (short of having it revealed that all of the umpires conspire to rig the games or something). This isn't professional wrestling. The entire reason people feel heartbroken when the ball rolls through Buckner's legs is because their first thought isn't "I'll bet Buckner had money on the Mets." Or, to make it more analogous, "I'll bet Buckner owed a bookie." It's gross how much professional sports has decided to cozy up to legal gambling, but they need to show up on this from an enforcement standpoint or the league will suffer.
I’ll say that looking at this piecemeal, it seems pretty ugly for Ohtani. Namely the friendly interaction with the interpreter hours (?) before the news broke, and the changing story.
Personally, I would have stuck with the “paid my friend’s debt” story, even if it was potentially bad for Ohtani. Once that was out there, it’s out there. And I think Ohtani, his PR team, the Dodgers, and MLB would have done a merry little dance around that narrative and eventually buried it.
“I agreed to pay my friend’s debt. It never occurred to me his gambling debts could have been accrued illegally.”
“Our investigation shows that while money was wired from Ohtani’s account, this was done by a third party, who did not do due diligence on Ohtani’s behalf.”
“MLB will be implementing a required educational program for all players and coaches to inform them on the threat of illegal gambling outfits and on safeguarding their earrings from fraud and manipulation.”
Leak: “Ohtani may have been mislead and misinformed by his friend, who severely abused Ohtani’s trust. But Ohtani is too nice a guy to say it himself.”
“Ohtani only agreed to pay the debt because he saw his friend was suffering greatly over this. Ohtani insisted his friend seek help with his gambling problem.”
I should get a job in PR/spin.
Personally, I would have stuck with the “paid my friend’s debt” story, even if it was potentially bad for Ohtani. Once that was out there, it’s out there. And I think Ohtani, his PR team, the Dodgers, and MLB would have done a merry little dance around that narrative and eventually buried it.
“I agreed to pay my friend’s debt. It never occurred to me his gambling debts could have been accrued illegally.”
“Our investigation shows that while money was wired from Ohtani’s account, this was done by a third party, who did not do due diligence on Ohtani’s behalf.”
“MLB will be implementing a required educational program for all players and coaches to inform them on the threat of illegal gambling outfits and on safeguarding their earrings from fraud and manipulation.”
Leak: “Ohtani may have been mislead and misinformed by his friend, who severely abused Ohtani’s trust. But Ohtani is too nice a guy to say it himself.”
“Ohtani only agreed to pay the debt because he saw his friend was suffering greatly over this. Ohtani insisted his friend seek help with his gambling problem.”
I should get a job in PR/spin.
Yeah, if Ohtani is advancing a false story (ultimately to the FBI) to cover up crimes and potentially send someone else to jail, it goes beyond gambling. Obviously if that's even true in the first place, there would have to be compelling evidence of it.
Yeah, I think you also can kind of make some veiled claims that necessarily puts everyone on your side -- that for a person from Japan who is not fully immersed in the law or the language, it's hard to really appreciate some of the distinctions that maybe are obvious to others. Gambling is ubiquitous and advertised, and is a sponsor. Now I understand the difference between legal and illegal gambling, but that's not an obvious distinction to everyone.
You can't say this explicitly, but between the lines leveraging the hypocrisy can be helpful I think.
If nothing else, this is a textbook case example of the value of a simple “no comment at this time”. Sometimes it’s better to watch things unfold, then to tie yourself to a narrative you might need to backpedal on later.
Ok, but if that's your worst case scenario an NBA ref was actually proven to be fixing games for mafia types a few years ago and that sport chugged on. Heck, there were even allegations coming out of that whole thing that the league was pressuring refs to try to stretch out playoff series or favor teams. I don't even think any of it made a dent to the league. In fact, that league has done marvelously well on the financial front since that scandal. They're rolling in money.
I'm not sure the NBA and MLB are comparable in their trajectory with fans currently. The NBA is on the rise, while MLB seems to be falling behind.
Also, I think the ARod suspension gives some cover for a suspension in this case. While Al was on the downside of his career, he was still a humongous name playing for a marquee team.
I don't think the issue is whether the sport would survive, it would. It's that if a player is involved in a federal crime(s) involving illegal gambling, the league has to take action. For obvious reasons of trust, so that fans, and legal bettors, think the games are on the up and up. The whole thing goes under without that. It's way too early to have a meaningful opinion on what Ohtani may or may not be guilty of, but the notion of MLB actively trying to bury this, or sweep it under the rug, doesn't track for me at all.
Thank you, this more elegantly says what I was trying to say. You have to be seen to be doing something to preserve the integrity of the sport.