Shohei Ohtani interpreter scandal: 4 remaining questions after Dodgers star tells his side of the story
After nearly a week of confusion about the actions of his now-fired former interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara, Shohei Ohtani sat in front of reporters Monday and told his side of the story.
The gist of the Los Angeles Dodgers star’s account is that Mizuhara embezzled $4.5 million from him to pay off illegal gambling debts and that Ohtani didn’t know about any of this until Mizuhara told the Dodgers last week that he had a gambling problem. Crucially, Ohtani — who reportedly speaks some English but isn’t fluent — was not told in the prior days about ESPN looking into the matter.
Ohtani divulged all this via a 12-minute statement he read and had translated by his new interpreter, Dodgers employee Will Ireton. Ireton previously translated for Kenta Maeda on the Dodgers before moving into a baseball operations role.
Unlike the story initially told by Mizuhara, in which Ohtani supposedly agreed to pay off those debts himself, this one doesn’t implicate Ohtani in a federal crime. If true, Ohtani is the victim of not just a seven-figure theft but also a betrayal by the person he considered his best friend since arriving in MLB.
It is a wild story, and it leaves us with more questions.
