OHTANI SAYS HE WAS SCAMMED … BUT HOW DID MIZUHARA ACCESS HIS ACCOUNT?

The human heart wants to buy his wild story, but it’s startling — even when an athlete makes $700 million — that an interpreter would have the necessary data to send at least $4.5 million to a bookie

     He will say nothing more. From this comatose moment on, Shohei Ohtani will be protected by attorneys, safeguarded by baseball executives, moonshined by merry media and presented as the cold victim of Ippei Mizuhara, who could be sentenced to 1,000 years in prison for exploiting his friend’s wire transfers and lying about his employment past.

     And if you were watching Ohtani independently, as I was Monday, you came away thinking his closest friend and confidante had stolen at least $4.5 million, sent the money to an illegal bookmaker through Ohtani’s account and backstabbed him in the most sub-human way imaginable. He was burned by a creep, right? He never bet on sports and never knowingly paid Mizuhara’s lost wagers, got it? That’s how folks want a sunken story to end — he said he was “very saddened and shocked someone whom I trusted has done this,” and how Mizuhara had acted in “a complete lie” — so he can carry on with maximizing Babe Ruth in the 21st century.

     But such a conclusion would be silly, naive and journalistically fanboyish. Just because Ohtani stood in a conference room at Dodger Stadium, tapping his heart and exposing tears, doesn’t mean he provided every answer. For starters: No matter how tight he grew with Mizuhara, how did his friggin’ interpreter have the numbers and coding to enter his portfolio and ship the losses in $500,000 increments to Mathew Bowyer and his Orange County gambling ring? I realize Ohtani arrived in southern California when he was 23. I understand he spent almost every waking minute with Mizuhara, at the ballpark and beyond, and that they grocery-shopped together and vacationed together while their wives were best buddies. It wouldn’t shock me if each had a tattoo with the other’s name.

     So was Mizuhara so close that he stole the golden digits? Or did Ohtani present him the digits, at some point, which means federal authorities, the Internal Revenue Service and Major League Baseball’s Department of Investigations have considerable work to perform before declaring Ohtani was haunted by a “massive theft.” The most urgent point to make was the one that wasn’t addressed behind the microphone.

     This is where Ohtani loses me. With his new interpreter, Will Ireton, he explained that Mizuhara “has been stealing money from my account and has been telling lies.” Ohtani added, “I never bet on baseball or any other sport and never asked someone to do it on my behalf and have never gone through a bookmaker to bet on sports — and was never asked to assist betting.” He said he knew nothing about any gambling addiction until the Dodgers called a team meeting after the first game in South Korea last week, while Mizuhara supposedly lied about Ohtani’s involvement when he spoke to the superstar’s representatives. This would explain, in Ohtani’s mind, why those reps said he was helping a poor friend with payments, including agent Nez Balelo, mentioned by an ESPN reporter who wrote, “Ohtani told Balelo he had covered Mizuhara’s debts in $500,000 increments.” Remember the new crisis-communications spokesman who quoted Ohtani as saying, “Yeah, I sent several large payments. That's the maximum amount I could send.”

     So we’re supposed to suddenly forget those comments ever were made? Not until after the team meeting did Ohtani sit with Mizuhara and finally realized, “He has a gambling addiction and has a massive debt. I never agreed to pay off the debt or make payments to the bookmaker. Ippei admitted he was sending money using my account to the bookmaker.”

     All of which is understandable. But how did Mizuhara maneuver Ohtani’s finances? At some stage, the victim might want to find out and tell all.

     If Ohtani wasn’t telling the truth, the reason is obvious. If he sent the money in transfers, he would be breaking the law in California, where sports gambling is not legal. He would be stuck in the seamy gulf of wagering — and baseball is tethered to it after commissioner Rob Manfred’s contracts with sportsbooks. Recanting the story a day later, claiming he was embezzled by Mizuhara instead of helping him, almost made the entire operation more suspicious. No doubt we want to believe Ohtani’s every word and worship him. It’s too early, at least in my mind, if not the minds of Manfred and his assistants.

     The sports community, which thinks it’s bigger and ballsier than the rest of us, wants the story to fade away so Ohtani can hit 50 home runs, keep selling jerseys and lead the Dodgers to the postseason. Never mind that Bowyer’s attorney, Diane Bass, already has spilled juice about Ohtani’s preservation. When learning two months ago about Ohtani’s involvement, Bass called federal prosecutors. “They were not the least bit interested,” she said.

     Leagues don’t care because problem gambling, Mizuhara’s curse in life, doesn’t bother throne-sitters when it should be Job 1. If MLB wanted to nail Ohtani, Manfred would be front and center, as he and other commissioners were found with steroids offenders, the Houston Astros and Pete Rose. But Ohtani will be allowed to leave and play ball, allowing “lawyers to handle matters.” Manfred’s first meeting with Ohtani, assuming there will be one, should involve the wire transfers to Bowyer. Ohtani’s use of the practice would be illegal while exposing him to a lengthy suspension, but word has come down from the soiled heavens to excuse him. How do you think Rose, who was banned for life for gambling on the sport, feels today? Or the steroids crew? Or the Astros? All suffered consequences.

     Save Ohtani from hell without serious questions from the media. This should remind everyone that baseball isn’t concerned about integrity. It’s concerned with resuming Shohei-mania and making money in a sport where future labor peace already looks bleak, with certain players exploring a change in union leadership, while 29 teams beyond the Dodgers know they can’t play a billion-dollar offseason game. The Athletics still have work on their Las Vegas transfer. The Chicago White Sox are looking at a move to Nashville. Tampa Bay still hasn’t settled on a new stadium. Miami is a mess. Most teams, such as Boston, have stopped spending.

     You think Manfred wants to impose a penalty on Ohtani? Never. Let it be the life problem of Mizuhara, who never attended UC Riverside and never worked for the Red Sox despite claims on his resume. Hey, what is $4.5 million in the world of a man who will make $700 million and makes hundreds of millions in endorsements? Those perks must be salvaged. Give him a chance to win an MVP and win 15 games next season. Fans don’t care that his name was in the hands of Bowyer, a creep with a history of bookie mistakes that included a ban from Vegas Strip casinos. They just want to see a three-run shot, right? That’s how baseball thinks.

     That’s how baseball always has thought, allowing scabs to heal over time instead of renewing public promises about trust. Once our national pastime, the sport has been damaged by non-stop scandals for decades. The one figure who seemed safe, Ohtani, also has man-child issues. Media people around the world should be focusing on baseball’s swirl of scam, with Mizuhara’s U.S. shambles angering folks in Ohtani’s native Japan. MLB will bank on the hope of diehard fans, ignoring those who remain troubled by a lack of leadership.

     Why do you think Dodgers manager Dave Roberts is moving forward? “Just kind of checked in on him and seeing how he’s doing. Everything that I’ve seen, he’s kind of business as usual, really,” he said of Ohtani.

     And the team? “I think the mood in the room is, get ready for baseball. Because I don't hear a lot of conversations and speculation,” he said. “For us, in the clubhouse and with coaches, to the players, we just want to play and prepare to play. That's it.”

     That’s not it for the reflective souls. We wonder about the feds and the condition of other problem gamblers in sports, who have inside information and can make more trouble for bank-account novices like Ohtani. This is not a one-time bruise. This is only the start of more gambling problems when, in fact, sports is too busy signing up sportsbooks and counting revenues. Fact is, in Manfred’s sphere, Mizuhara could take a pre-game break and bet on a game in some DraftKings ballpark shop.

     So much is left to be explained to a clueless public. Shohei Ohtani fessed up but left a hole in his swing. The lawyers and executives think they’re smarter than you.

     Don’t allow them.

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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.