OHTANI RULES BASEBALL, AGAIN, AS A SCANDAL IS IGNORED BY ADORING FANS
Dodger Stadium has become a home to his people, the Japanese, and while he leads the majors in home runs and batting average, we’ll keep asking why he didn’t know his close pal gambled 25 times a day
My day is preoccupied, suffocated by a busy t-shirt shop at Dodger Stadium. Nine of 13 options belong to Shohei Ohtani — seven jersey styles, some with Japanese letters, along with a can cooler and a lanyard. A couple of shirts feature Yoshinobu Yamamoto. The other two are Freddie Freeman’s. When I ask about Mookie Betts, who only is the early MVP of the National League, a finger points me down the corridor.
This is my first game of the season. Who knew I’d see so many joyous Japanese baseball fans, as if I was re-visiting the Tokyo Dome? The chairman of the Dodgers, Mark Walter, says six tour guides bring Japanese groups through the ballpark — every day. “It’s really been unbelievable,” he said, “the sponsorships that have come in and companies that are reaching out to us. It’s just non-stop.”
Throughout the main concourse level, Japanese restaurants are part of the scene, alongside Dodger Dog stands. When Ohtani is batting, his scoreboard photo is the only one accompanied by an advertisement, through Kose, described as “Japanese skincare for body, mind and spirit.” Of the eight ads behind the outfield pavilion, four are Japanese-related — Toyo Tires, Jinro Soju, Yakult and Daiso — with a fifth from Taiwan. Behind home plate, Japanese spots rotate in the mix. As the game begins against the 10-28 Miami Marlins, a group of Japanese fans chant in the outfield, “Let’s Go Dodgers!”
It occurs to me that Ohtani was brought to Los Angeles not only as a $700 million player, by far the largest in North American sports history, but as a world circus. The Guggenheim owners are hellbound in turning the Dodgers into a Japanese and Asian stronghold, which has happened quickly abroad and in southern California. Back home, the people have read about the scandal in which his interpreter and best friend, Ippei Mizuhara, stole almost $17 million from Ohtani to pay off his gambling debt. Wednesday, as Ohtani continued to lead the major leagues in batting average (.355) and home runs (11) with a staggering 1.103 OPS, Mizuhara appeared in court downtown and agreed to plead guilty on charges of felony bank fraud and submitting a false tax return. Ohtani can do no wrong among the faithful Japanese. Ippei is the hippo.
Yet, I continue to ask — when other sports media do not — why Ohtani claims to have no idea that his rock-the-world bosom buddy made 19,000 bets and lost $40.67 million between December 2021 and January 2024. Even if he was oddly oblivious to his bank accounts, as he and the feds say, why didn’t Ohtani address a man so obsessed with an addiction? He had to know Mizuhara was living a holy hell. He had to wonder how he was paying off his debts. He had to check on his financial portfolio, before the $20 million in non-deferred money kicked in on his $700 million. And if Ohtani knew, he is lying to the government that knows legal sports gambling is against the law in California.
And if he lies, he’s at least in trouble with Major League Baseball. And commissioner Rob Manfred would rather have his testicles cut off than bury the savior of his sport — knowing he can’t keep top pitchers arm-healthy, knowing he has stadium wreckages on Chicago’s South Side and Tampa Bay, knowing he still has players performing in cheap dime-store uniforms, knowing the collapse of regional sports networks could ruin the game on local television. All baseball has is Shohei Ohtani. And the Dodgers, who are 26-13 with a seven-game winning streak after sweeping the Atlanta Braves.
Imagine Mizuhara wiring money to a cast member of “The Real Housewives of Orange County” as a service to illegal bookmaker Mathew Bowyer. He was shipping funds from Ohtani’s accounts to Ryan Boyajian, known in the complaint as “Associate 1.” You don’t think Mizuhara would have told Ohtani that his name was at the bottom of transfers to some Bravo goofball? Please. The story was reported by ESPN’s Tisha Thompson, and again, the network reminds us what’s wrong with gambling but continues to run ads for ESPN Bet, despite losing $114.9 million in the first quarter on its hypocritical project.
In the clubhouse, the Dodgers are thrilled to know Mizuhara is going away. He will pay restitution to Ohtani and the IRS, but for coming clean, he won’t be serving a maximum of 33 years in federal prison on both charges. “The extent of this defendant’s deception and theft is massive,” said United States Attorney Martin Estrada. “He took advantage of his position of trust to take advantage of Mr. Ohtani and fuel a dangerous gambling habit.” He continues to say Ohtani was completely duped at the bank by Mizuhara, who impersonated him about 24 times. Why did the bank never call Ohtani? Why aren’t investigative reporters asking in LA? Are they protecting the Dodgers?
No one in the ballpark cares. Fans of all backgrounds were thrilled, numbering 40,702, and many wore one of his jerseys. The players sense only the Philadelphia Phillies will be an NL playoff problem. “I just hope it is more closure on the situation,” manager Dave Roberts said.
As for his wonderment with the bat, Ohtani made an all-time crack after blowing away the Braves. “Slug is part of my game,” he said. “So being able to express that in a game situation like that … is important as well.” One of his home runs went 464 feet, which ranks third in the Statcast era behind Giancarlo Stanton (475 feet) and Fernando Tatis Jr. (467 feet).
“People don't hit the ball out there,” said Roberts, “whether you're right-handed or left-handed, day game, night game.”
Next time the Dodgers are at home, a week from tonight, they will give 40,000 fans a bobblehead of Ohtani. I checked the last row in the right-field upper deck, Section 60. It’s the cheapest seat in the place at $134.
The scandal didn’t hurt the Dodgers. It won’t hurt Ohtani. It won’t hurt baseball. But it maimed Ippei Mizuhara when, in the end, there’s more to tell about his superstar pal and where he was all those months, when he was gambling 25 times a day on average. Nah, Shohei didn’t know a damned thing.
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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.