Major
League Baseball
(MLB) opened a formal investigation into the main figure of the
Los Angeles Dodgers,
the Japanese
Shohei Ohtani,
and Ippei Mizuhara, who was his translator before the Los Angeles franchise decided to fire him last Wednesday in the midst of a major scandal.
Ohtani's lawyers claimed that the Japanese star was the victim of a
"massive robbery."
“Major League Baseball has been gathering information since we learned of the allegations involving Shohei Ohtani and Ippei (Mizuhara) in the media,”
the commissioner's office said in a statement issued last Friday, following reports published by Los Angeles Times and ESPN that incriminated both.
“Today, our Investigations Department began its formal investigation process.”
Ohtani and the Dodgers were in Seoul, South Korea, for their first series against the San Diego Padres when reports first came out.
The teams returned to the United States after Thursday night's game (15-11 loss) and MLB made no public comments until announcing the investigation that also puts the spotlight on
Mathew Bowyer, the alleged illegal bookmaker.
Ohtani left South Korea quietly and so far has not made any statement in this regard.
Meanwhile, Mizuhara, a personal translator and close friend of the Dodgers designated hitter, told ESPN on Tuesday that he bet on international soccer, the NBA, the NFL and college football.
Ohtani and Mizuhara, those involved in illegal betting.
Photo: Jung Yeon-je/AFP
MLB rules prohibit players and team employees from betting, even legally,
on baseball and also prohibit betting on other sports with illegal or offshore sportsbooks.
It is punishable by a one-year ban from the sport.
In other sports, meanwhile, the sanction is at the discretion of the commissioner.
“I'm a disaster (gambling).
I will not do.
I never made any money,” Mizuhara said.
“I dug myself into a hole and made things worse.
I bet more to get out of it and I kept losing.
"It's like a snowball,"
she added.
It is the biggest betting scandal in baseball since
Pete Rose
accepted a lifetime ban in 1989, after an MLB investigation by attorney John Dowd found that Rose placed numerous bets on the Cincinnati Reds to win. 1985 to 1987 while playing and managing that same team.
Source: agencies