Steve Webb
LOS ANGELES, CA — Speaking with the help of a new interpreter, Shohei Ohtani addressed the media today regarding the scandal surrounding the scandal involving his former interpreter Ippei Mizuhara. He was adamant that he knew nothing of this issue until the team meeting in South Korea after the first game with the Padres.
“I never bet on baseball or any other sports and have never asked someone to do so on my behalf and have never bet through a bookmaker,” Ohtani said through interpreter Will Ireton. “Until a couple of days ago, I didn’t know this was happening. … Ippei has stolen money from my account and told lies.”
According to Ohtani’s version of events, the entire first story was cooked up by Mizuhara without his knowledge. Mizuhara, this story goes, did an end-around of Shohei when he heard about the ESPN article, and figured he could clean it up after the fact with Ohtani. Ohtani says he was completely unaware of the missing money until the meeting after the game. But he says that even with his limited English, he didn’t like the sound of the story that Mizuhara was telling his teammates and was stunned to learn of the payments to the bookmaker in a private meeting he had with Mizuhara at the team hotel.
“Ippei admitted that he had used my account to pay off the debt,” Ohtani said. “At that point I went to my representatives, who found out Ippei had been lying the whole time.”
Referring to some notes, but seemingly speaking extemporaneously for much of the fifteen minute conference, Ohtani spoke of the betrayal of Mizuhara, and his feelings about the entire incident. “In conclusion, I want to say I have never bet on sports or used a bookmaker. I am beyond shocked. It’s really hard to verbalize how I’m feeling at this point. The season is gonna start so will let my lawyers handle matters from here on out.”
The one thing that I wish he would have at least mentioned was the “how” of the whole thing. If he’d have spoken about exactly the mechanism that Mizuhara used to steal the money would have been helpful. Of course, there is the possiblity that he still doesn’t know what happened exactly.
To me Ohtani came off as sincerely and genuinely stunned at what has transpired. He might be lying, but it didn’t seem like it. We shall see.
