Minutes after Matt Bowyer opened an interactive chat with his Instagram followers Tuesday, Shohei Ohtani laced a low slider nearly 440 feet for a leadoff home run – his 23rd of the season.
Ohtani’s left-centre blast was his 132nd homer since he joined the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2024, the most by any Major League Baseball player in that timeframe. Marvelling at Ohtani’s wunderkind talents, Bowyer informed viewers that he is hoping to attend a Dodgers game this season, the former bookie’s first since his release from prison this spring.
Speaking to reporters through interpreter Will Ireton, the replacement for former translator Ippei Mizuhara, Ohtani conceded that his return to the mound will be delayed. Despite a biceps injury, Ohtani remains the overwhelming favourite for National League MVP, as he bids to become the first player since Barry Bonds to earn league MVPs in four consecutive seasons. It is the type of accolade Dodgers fans envisioned when Ohtani kicked off his “Big Blue” career at the 2024 MLB Korea Series, roughly 6,000 miles from Chavez Ravine.
Remarkably, Ohtani’s play has improved since the watershed event on 20 March 2024 that altered the course of his, Bowyer’s and Mizuhara’s lives immeasurably. On that day (Seoul time), Mizuhara told ESPN that Ohtani sent millions to accounts controlled by Bowyer to cover a portion of the interpreter’s gambling debts. Hours later, Mizuhara recanted the story as Ohtani’s camp claimed he was the victim of a massive embezzlement.
The incident received renewed attention this week as ESPN released new audio of the initial interview with Mizuhara. Bowyer, for his part, reiterated his prior views that he does not believe Ohtani wagered with his illegal sportsbook.
“He did nothing wrong, I don’t believe he gambled,” Bowyer said on Instagram on Tuesday.
The rep to the stars
Eight days before the majority of Major League Baseball took the field for the first time in the 2024 regular season, Ohtani and the Dodgers faced the Padres in Seoul for a two-game series. By then, Tisha Thompson, an investigative reporter with ESPN, had already spent months pursuing a tip on a major gambling story.
Multiple sources informed Thompson of allegations of wire transfers sent from a bank account bearing Ohtani’s name. In particular, Thompson learned of two wires of $500,000 each that were sent to accounts associated with Bowyer’s sports betting enterprise.
In the hours leading up to the opener, Thompson appeared to receive faulty intel that tied Ohtani to the payments. After Thompson contacted the representatives of Ohtani, she received a call from Hiltzik Strategies, a crisis management firm retained by the Dodgers’ star. Matthew Hiltzik, founder of the firm, subsequently connected Thompson with Mizuhara, Ohtani’s longtime interpreter. Hiltzik, a prominent crisis specialist, has represented the likes of Hillary Clinton, Ivanka Trump, Brad Pitt and Katie Couric, among others.
Bowyer, whose home was raided by federal agents the prior October, was eventually accused of accepting approximately $325 million in wagers from Mizuhara. While Mizuhara recorded gross winnings of $142.3 million, they were offset by losses of $182.9 million, resulting in a net debt of $40.2 million. Thompson, who won a 2024 Associated Press Sports Editors’ award for her coverage of the case, sought answers on the nature of the wire transfers.
Of the debts, Bowyer received payments for nearly $17 million, with the rest still outstanding to this day. Thompson’s 90-minute interview with Mizuhara before the game triggered a series of events that has left the public clamouring for the unvarnished truth.
The call
ESPN initially published a portion of Mizuhara’s comments two years ago, but did not release a more extensive version until the airing of Tuesday’s podcast.
Among the new details, Thompson revealed that she met with a confidential source at an undisclosed location in the middle of the night. There, she received information pertaining to bank routing numbers on an encrypted phone.
Two of the six-figure wires were transferred over the span of a month in 2023, Ohtani’s final weeks with the Los Angeles Angels. The first occurred on 14 September 2023, days before the Angels shelved Ohtani for the season. The second transpired on 2 October 2023, after the Angels’ season concluded.
Over the course of the call, Mizuhara appeared to paint a picture of the purported transactions, portions of which he later admitted to fabricating.
Ippei Mizuhara: Honestly, in the beginning I felt really uncomfortable … he went on– like nothing ever happened.
IM: (Ohtani) knew the whole amount, and knew that we had to make several payments, because you can’t send more than $500,000 at a time.
TT: Did you go to him and remind him? Would he do it of his own volition?
IM: No, I would do it with him every time.
TT: And it just became normal, it wasn’t awkward? Is that what you’re saying?
IM: For me, it was – it felt bad every time we did a wire.
TT: But he didn’t make a big deal out of it?
IM: No.
The shocking turn of events
Ohtani went two for five in the Dodgers’ 5-2 win, including an RBI single that completed a four-run rally in the eighth. At 10pm Seoul time, roughly three hours after the end of the game, an MLB source told Thompson that Ohtani covered a portion of Mizuhara’s debts.
Back in Seoul, Dodgers executive Andrew Friedman informed the players in a clubhouse meeting that Mizuhara’s debt were being repaid by Ohtani, ESPN reported.
At the meeting, Mizuhara apologised to the team, ascribing the large debts to his gambling addiction. On the drive back to the hotel, however, Ohtani apparently first learned that a substantial amount of money went missing from his account, according to published reports.
The Japanese star later stated that when he learned of the allegations of stolen money, he contacted his legal team, who advised him to let law enforcement handle the matter.
A victim of theft
By 2pm ET (3am in Seoul), Ohtani’s attorneys from Berk Brettler LLP issued a statement that read: “In the course of responding to recent media inquiries, we discovered that Shohei has been the victim of a massive theft and we are turning the matter over to the authorities.”
By 3:30am, in South Korea, the Dodgers terminated Mizuhara. Within the next half hour, he informed Thompson via phone that he had lied during their previous call. This time, Mizuhara asserted that Ohtani had no knowledge of the gambling debts and did not transfer funds to the gambling enterprise. Thompson provided a detailed play-by-play of this second call on Tuesday’s episode, a conversation that was not recorded.
While Mizuhara was paid at least $300,000 a year by the Dodgers, he still needed a financial backstop to wager with the limits presented by Bowyer. At his peak, Mizuhara received limits of around $100,000 a bet with Bowyer’s sportsbook, the ex-bookmaker confirmed on Tuesday. According to a criminal complaint against Mizuhara, approximately three wagers totalling $…