Shohei, It Ain't So!
(Note: The historical section below was taken from a Baseball Bench Coach article “Our Heroes” last year.)
In March the 2024 MLB season started out with a bang, but maybe not the bang Commissioner Manfred had hoped for. The Dodgers, the team that had made the biggest offseason splash ever in signing superstar Shohei Ohtani to a record 10-year, $700 million contract, were set to play the Padres in the showcase “Seoul Series”, a week prior to Opening Day of the season. As the teams prepared for the two games in South Korea, a scandal shook the baseball world. Reports came out that Ippei Mizuhara, Ohtani’s interpreter, had used millions of dollars from Ohtani’s bank account to satisfy gambling debts.
Mizuhara had served as Ohtani’s interpreter since Shohei arrived to MLB in 2018. The early reports about the scandal were conflicting. On March 19 Mizuhara told ESPN that Ohtani paid his gambling debts at the interpreter’s request. At first there was much confusion and dismay out of the Dodger camp. Shohei and the Dodgers quickly recovered at a news conference on March 25 at Dodger Stadium. He told the media present that he never bet on sports or knowingly paid the gambling debts of Mizuhara. Shohei, it ain’t so!
In the early part of the 20th century, reports of gambling on baseball were almost commonplace. The 1919 World Series will forever be remembered by the Black Sox Scandal. Shoeless Joe Jackson and seven other Sox players were accused of throwing the Series by accepting bribes and indicted for a conspiracy to defraud the public. While the players were eventually acquitted, they were suspended for life by Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis.
Prior to the 1947 season Brooklyn Dodgers manager Leo Durocher was suspended for one year for associating with gambling figures. You remember the 1947 season -- Dodger great Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier. Durocher was a huge supporter of Robinson but couldn’t be there for him. A decade later, two other New York baseball legends were introduced, the New York Giants’ Willie Mays and the Yankees’ Mickey Mantle. Both were the epitome of five-tool players, and their career numbers demonstrated it. Yet, after both players had been inducted into the Hall of Fame, Commissioner Bowie Kuhn gave them life bans from baseball for essentially hanging out at casinos. Peter Ueberroth lifted the bans as one of his first acts as Commissioner.
Gambling took center stage at the end of Pete Rose’s great career. MLB’s all-time hit leader returned to the Reds in 1984 as player manager and retired from the playing field two years later. In August 1989 a story broke that Rose gambled on baseball games while he played for and managed the Reds. He was placed on the permanent ineligibility list. In 1991, the Hall of Fame voted to ban players on the permanent ineligibility list from induction.
The Rose scandal hit me hard. I idolized Pete growing up, a player from my side of town in Cincinnati who willed himself to become one of the best ever. I recall Marty Brennaman, Reds’ longtime radio announcer, defending Rose on the airwaves. I so hoped that Brenneman was correct and the allegations were not true. After twenty years of denial, Rose admitted in 2004 to gambling on baseball and on his Reds. And unfortunately, we most likely never will see his plaque in the Hall of Fame.
The Mizuhara scandal came out of an IRS criminal investigation of an alleged illegal bookmaker. MLB soon opened a separate investigation, and MIzuhara was immediately fired by the Dodgers. He has now been charged with federal bank crimes involving payments of more than $16 million appropriated from Ohtani’s bank account for gambling debts. U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada declared last month that there is no evidence that Ohtani was aware of any of Mizuhara’s dealings. Estrada also maintained that Shohei has cooperated fully with the federal investigation. MLB has officially suspended its investigation pending the federal matter.
While Ohtani’s first month with the Dodgers has been marred by these off field concerns, Ohtani and the Dodgers have performed on the field. Although Shohei got off to a slow start at the plate, he currently wields a batting average of .364 with 10 HRs and 25 RBIs. At week’s end, his Dodgers lead the NL West by 5 1/2 games. I’m sure there’s hope in a couple executive offices on both coasts, New York and Los Angeles, that this matter quietly goes away. Shohei, it ain’t so!
Until next Monday,
your Baseball Bench Coach