OHTANI SHOULD BE SUSPENDED FOR ALLOWING HIS INTERPRETER TO SCAM HIM

With sports in a dark gambling period, Ohtani didn’t report Ippei Mizuhara to MLB, instead choosing to help his betting friend financially until a law firm claimed he was victimized by "massive theft"

     He was aiding and abetting a gambler, or his interpreter and close friend, the man who served as his catcher at the All-Star Game. Worse, Shohei Ohtani was asked to pay off Ippei Mizuhara’s debt, which had soared past $4.5 million. If we believe the story, as Mizuhara told ESPN this week, Ohtani agreed to help him pay off the bill to a bookmaker — meaning, he was dealing with the scum of Mathew Bowyer, whose Orange County home was raided for cash, bank documents, computers and phones.

     “Obviously, he (Ohtani) wasn’t happy about it and said he would help me out to make sure I never do this again. He decided to pay it off for me,” Mizuhara said.

     Unless the problem gambler is lying — and I doubt it — Ohtani’s hands were soiled to the point last year where Major League Baseball must suspend the messiah who is supposed to save the sport. This would be a horrific judgment but necessary given the secretive nature behind it, even if Ohtani wasn’t involved in gambling. And though Mizuhara suddenly changed his story a day later, as Ohtani’s attorneys accused him of a “massive theft,” he said Ohtani wouldn’t pay off Bowyer directly because “he didn’t want me to gamble it away.”

     Whether he’s Japanese or American or personal background aside, Ohtani was uncommonly careless to give Mizuhara the payback figure as a six-year veteran player. He should have fired him immediately and alerted the Angels and MLB. The altered story that he stole millions from Ohtani could be the work of Creative Artists Agency, the Hollywood firm that represents him, and bosses from the Los Angeles Dodgers and MLB. They want to protect the man who was paid $700 million and is trying to inject pride into baseball with his two-way enormity. But some of us believe what Mizuhara originally said, and though he claimed to never bet on baseball, he involved Ohtani when he bet illegally in California despite gambling’s legal standing in 38 states. Using an illegal bookie allowed Mizuhara to be fired as he violated Rule 21 (d): “Any player, umpire, or club or league official or employee who places bets with illegal book makers, or agents for illegal book makers, shall be subject to such penalty as the Commissioner deems appropriate in light of the facts and circumstances of the conduct.”

     There will be pressure from Ohtani’s massive load of fans to give him a break. He was supporting a longtime buddy in need. “I want everyone to know Shohei had zero involvement in betting,” Mizuhara said. “I want people to know I did not know this was illegal. I learned my lesson the hard way. I will never do sports betting ever again.” Still, the friendship carried more weight with Ohtani when he should know — as the highest-paid player in American team sports, nearing age 30 — that he can’t be associating with gamblers of any sort.

     He must serve time. The sentence might murder baseball, but he must.

     The commissioner, Rob Manfred, should make a striking statement. Assuming Ohtani was not involved in gambling, he should be suspended half a season when gambling on a baseball game — without a player being involved — would incur a one-year suspension. We have entered sport’s dirtiest period with legal gambling. Making Ohtani sit will serve as an urgent lesson for other athletes.

     For baseball, this doesn’t fall to the sordid level of Pete Rose, who continues a lifetime ban for gambling in the mid-1980s. But given the latitude of Ohtani — the colossal amounts of attention he is receiving, the apparel he is selling and sports-card grading higher than Michael Jordan and LeBron James — the crash is at a killer level. As it is, the $1 billion-plus awarded to Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto placed the Dodgers in a collusion mode, while the other 29 franchises are cutting costs with Guggenheim Baseball establishing all-time records. Unlike the NFL and NBA, MLB is struggling as a TV entity, with ESPN capable next year of opting away from its “Sunday Night Baseball” package of $550 million a year. Ohtani was supposed to help. His Mizuhara relationship is a slaughter.

     Consider the tale a wicked catch-all for sports. In a short period, we have nothing but gambling shock. J.B. Bickerstaff, head coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers, said Wednesday that he received threats from gamblers last season. “They got my telephone number and were sending me crazy messages about where I live and my kids and all that stuff,” Bickerstaff said. “So it is a dangerous game and a fine line that we're walking for sure.” When NBA commissioner Adam Silver encourages sportsbooks to be built inside arenas, is he considering such dangers?

     “It brings added pressure,” Bickerstaff said. “It brings a distraction to the game that can be difficult for players, coaches, referees, everybody that's involved in it. And I think that we really have to be careful with how close we let it get to the game and the security of the people who are involved in it. Because again, it does carry a weight. A lot of times the people who are gambling like this money pays their light bill or pay their rent, and then the emotions that come from that. So I do think we're walking a very fine line and we have to be extremely careful in protecting everybody who's involved.”

     Then we had Amit Patel, a former employee of the NFL’s Jacksonville Jaguars, who stole more than $22 million from the team and was sentenced to 78 months in prison. “It began small and then snowballed so big that my only thought was to gamble my way out of it,” Patel told the court. “In the end, I always thought that big win was right around the corner and would fix all my problems.” Think commissioner Roger Goodell, as he embraces sportsbook deals, ponders other potential mishaps?

     Now we have Mizuhara, 39, who was internationally known as Ohtani’s ballpark confidante. He speaks the nasty language of problem gamblers who benefit from the Supreme Court’s 2018 decision, when commercial sports betting was legalized. “I’m terrible. Never going to do it again. Never won any money,” he said. “I mean, I dug myself a hole and it kept on getting bigger, and it meant I had to bet bigger to get out of it and just kept on losing.

     “It’s like a snowball effect. Obviously, this is all my fault, everything I’ve done. I’m ready to face all the consequences.”

     And to think Mizuhara, who grew up in Japan and moved to southern California as a boy, was so close to Ohtani that they shopped together and studied at-bats on a tablet computer. In Anaheim, he was popular enough that fans gave him ovations. He was paid almost $500,000 a year. He did not have to gamble. But he was crazed, to the point it ruined his relationship with the greatest player of our time.

     Now, ignoring the gambling policy posted in every clubhouse, Shohei Ohtani must sit and strain his love affair with sports fans. Watch closely how the Dodgers, MLB and certain media try to make him the helpless victim. That would be impossible.

     ###

     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.