shohei ohtani alert

That's gotta by gyac's alt... I'd put serious money on it.

#1) Mizusawa officially changed its name to Oshu (note: NOT OHSHU) in 2006* which makes me a little sus...

*https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%A5%A5%E5%B7%9E%E5%B8%82#%E6%A6%82%E8%A6%81

Just got home from Benihana's and some solid cook-in-front-you-food, now comes the 'food coma'
— Tim Lincecum (@timlincecum) March 13, 2012

Ippei's dad is an izakaya chef in Costa Mesa, c'mon people... DO YOU SEE!?!?!?!?!

ending this with "he has a real problem, free the interpreter" makes me suspect this is all made up, but hey I'm intrigued

Also if Timmeh had wrote that the bet was placed with a bookie in San Juan Capistrano (literally the whole reason Otani got snagged into the net) I would be much more intrigued.

_Just got home from Benihana's and some solid cook-in-front-you-food, now comes the 'food coma'
— Tim Lincecum (@timlincecum) March 13, 2012_


Ippei's dad is an izakaya chef in Costa Mesa, c'mon people... DO YOU SEE!?!?!?!?!

Calling on Kenesaw Mountain Manfred to sort this out.

And Benihana was founded by Rocky Aoki whose son DJ Steve Aoki has a Vega$ residency, where gambling *is* legal. So I'm all in on $hohei being legitimately mistaken.

This is Manfred's biggest crisis since Covid, right? These things do tend to define a commissioner--Kuhn and Aaron (well, Kuhn had a dozen of them), Giamatti and Rose, Selig and PEDs, etc.

(And before someone points this out, I know Landis had his entrenched opposition to integration as a--or the--major part of his legacy.)

ESPN just published a big timeline with some more granular information. A lot of questions remain, whole thing remains extremely messy. What stuck out to me is that ESPN has known about the wire transfers for months.

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/39784809/dodgers-shohei-ohtani-mizuhara-theft-line

Jeff Passan waiting there to drop his tweet about Ohtani’s new team back in December, thinking, I wonder how they’ll deal with this when it comes out?

So the Dodgers hire a PR crisis agent to coach Mizuhara for ~5 hours on how to soften the blow/get the story straight in the interview and then immediately after that interview Mizuhara changes his story and says he was lying the entire time.

LOL

should read: "...Mizuhara *is forced to* change his story..."

Ok but Ohtani is a CAA client, I would assume CAA have seasoned crisis comms people rather than hiring someone hastily? Wouldn’t the Dodgers have people?

5:30 p.m. ET Monday (6:30 a.m. Tuesday in Seoul): A crisis-communications spokesman for Ohtani, who had just been hired, responds to ESPN. Over the next several hours, he and an ESPN reporter will talk at various times as the spokesman says he is getting up to speed on information from the Ohtani camp.

This person has been ID'd as Jon Weisman, who claims to be a LAD employee (VP of Comms) so it's confusing as he wouldn't need to be hired?

...unless he was hired by Shohei in an outside capacity from his duties for the Dodgers?

I know Shohei isn't pitching this season but it's extremely on brand for misfortune and scandal to befall a dodgers pitcher. Half pitcher in this case.

What stuck out to me is that ESPN has known about the wire transfers for months.

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/39784809/dodgers-shohei-ohtani-mizuhara-theft-line

― Roman Anthony gets on his horse (gyac), Friday, March 22, 2024 1:54 PM (forty-three minutes ago)

I'm gonna say competition. LA Times (who had undoubtedly had access to the same FOIA docs and were equally patient to wait until the start of the MLB season) were going to print so ESPN decided to hard launch a few hours earlier to get more scoop-clicks.

and another thing: Shohei doesn’t like gambling. please dont put in the newspaper that he likes gambling. https://t.co/BiHexzUJPu pic.twitter.com/uB1C0klNV9

— M Y A S S I N J A C K P O T (@vodkasnowflake) March 22, 2024

Ok I’m not even halfway through an interesting Athletic post on this and now this comes through

MLB announced that “earlier today” their department of investigations “began their formal process investigating the matter” involving Shohei Ohtani and Ippei Mizuhari.

— Alden González (@Alden_Gonzalez) March 22, 2024

ok Mizuhara is really overplaying his hand here now I'm convinced he's just taking the fall

I hadn’t thought about this angle but this (from the Athletic) made me think about the background check part of things. They couldn’t have known about the debts but…when would this check be done? Before signing? Would the Angels willingly collaborate with Dodgers inquiries when they were trying to retain Ohtani themselves?

And given the shoddy way the Angels are run and the autonomy they gave Ohtani during his time there, what would they even know themselves?

What kind of background check did the Dodgers do on Mizuhara?

The recruitment of Ohtani in free agency was intense. Every bidder knew Mizuhara almost certainly would be part of the package. It’s possible the Dodgers and other teams, in their fervor to sign Ohtani, did not look deeply enough into his sidekick. It’s also possible they would not have uncovered his gambling debts if they had.

The Dodgers, however, had particular reason to be careful. They faced questions about the background work they did on Bauer after a woman alleged he assaulted her during two sexual encounters in 2021, and the Washington Post reported that two other women had alleged similar interactions with Bauer in the past. Bauer denied wrongdoing and was never charged with a crime, but those allegations led to his 324-game suspension, which an independent arbitrator later reduced to 194.

Bauer signed with the team earlier that year, and club officials told the Los Angeles Times they spoke about him with former teammates, coaches, clubhouse personnel and athletic trainers from his previous three clubs (Arizona, Cleveland and Cincinnati). They also had multiple conversations with Bauer about his use of social media.

Mizuhara told ESPN he has been paid between $300,000 and $500,000 annually. Ohtani, who signed a 10-year, $700 million contract, is much more valuable to the franchise. Yet, a rival club official said teams generally dig as deeply into the backgrounds of employees as they do with star free agents.

“Maybe not the exact same, but they would definitely do some work and ask around,” said the official, who was granted anonymity for his candor. “That said, I’m guessing it was assumed they were a package deal and Ippei had no known issues with the Angels.”

Asked what kind of background work the Dodgers did on Mizuhara, Stan Kasten declined comment.

Mizuhara told ESPN he has been paid between $300,000 and $500,000 annually.

He made even less than that, from today's ESPN story:

"At the time [2002], his salary with the Angels was about $85,000"

^^^[2022] (the angels were actually good in 2002)

So the question remains: what bookie would stake $4.5M to a guy making $85k a year?

xp I think he may have also made a percentage from Ohtani’s income but I can’t remember where I read that

This person has been ID'd as Jon Weisman, who claims to be a LAD employee (VP of Comms) so it's confusing as he wouldn't need to be hired?

Pretty sure this is the guy who ran the classic Dodgers blog, Dodger Thoughts.

I feel like how i felt when the entire trump administration got covid at the same time like wtf is going on

ippei wrote this at the end of 2022 for his old “monthly ippei” column:

“The World Cup is gaining more momentum, and Shohei also watched Japan's games when time permits, such as the game against Costa Rica. I used to play soccer as a kid and watched almost every game, not just… pic.twitter.com/XlsEbvsMBA

— hoesmad (@xxl233) March 22, 2024

at the end of the day this kinda feels like busting someone for smoking pot. yes, illegal in a few states and maybe you can stick ohtani with a few federal charges. but that's not where the culture is, that's not where the pro leagues are. steve cohen is advocating for a casino next to shea. i know there's a third rail here - an athlete betting on the sport they play in - but so far i don't think i've seen any allegations that shohei was throwing games (other than by our good friend timmy snakes). the feds going after PEDs is one thing but going after a future billionaire who's using a bit of pocket change - whether to help out a friend or to cover a few of his own bad, non-baseball bets - seems like it'll land flat in the court of public opinion. idk, what am i missing?

In terms of baseball's hypocrisy on this, you're absolutely right. I don't know how much that will help or not help Ohtani. Unlikely, but I could even see the league overreacting in an effort to mitigate its own embrace of gambling.

at the end of the day this kinda feels like busting someone for smoking pot. yes, illegal in a few states and maybe you can stick ohtani with a few federal charges. but that's not where the culture is, that's not where the pro leagues are. steve cohen is advocating for a casino next to shea. i know there's a third rail here - an athlete betting on the sport they play in - but so far i don't think i've seen any allegations that shohei was throwing games (other than by our good friend timmy snakes). the feds going after PEDs is one thing but going after a future billionaire who's using a bit of pocket change - whether to help out a friend or to cover a few of his own bad, non-baseball bets - seems like it'll land flat in the court of public opinion. idk, what am i missing?

gyac nailed it, this would be a much smaller deal if Ippei was caught by authorities stealing from Ohtani.

But we learned about these wires not via the FEDs/IRS, nor Shohei, nor the Dodgers nor MLB... but from LA Times/ESPN who waited til the team was on the other side of the world to start asking questions and threatening to go public.

Sending large amounts of money to an illegal bookmaker under false pretense (loan), I can imagine in the eyes of the law is much more severe than smoking pot (or even possessing/trafficking a material amount of). This is a federal felony territory, with potential wire fraud/laundering implications.

LAD hired a PR crisis pro (their VP of Comms?) to respond to the allegations and after 5 hours it was Ippei who came forth not in his role as a translator but rather as the heel of this kayfabe production, to give a 90 minute interview with ESPN explaining how he had an inexplicably massive gambling debt and he and Shohei paid the wires together.

But all this happened in the middle of the night Los Angeles time, and when the Dodgers legal team woke up a few hours later... suddenly Ippei walked back everything he had told ESPN and said that he alone was the actor and LAD legal's team declared Shohei the victim of a massive theft and that Ippei was no longer an employee.

Granted (as I said upthread) that his punishment will likely be a fine and a carefully-worded non-apology and perhaps some mild media attempts showing a sense of humor about it... but this is a PR nightmare because Shoehei had an absolute flawless celebrity image and now that is tainted, even with Ippei taking 100% of the fall.

(I could probably write more about the allure of gambling/pseudo-gambling in Japan, seemingly every family having a weird uncle who got caught up owing too much money to the wrong people, why there are so many Japanese-friendly hotels/restaurants in Las Vegas, but that can wait for another thread...)

Sending large amounts of money to an illegal bookmaker under false pretense (loan), I can imagine in the eyes of the law is much more severe than smoking pot (or even possessing/trafficking a material amount of). This is a federal felony territory, with potential wire fraud/laundering implications.

my point comparing sports gambling to pot is that i think both are examples of activities that the majority of american society simply doesn't think are crimes any more.

framing ohtani degen gambling as wire fraud/money laundering - who is the victim here? what is the harm to society? sports betting as wire fraud - who is being defrauded here? sports betting as money laundering - who is shohei laundering money on behalf of? is shohei washing money for putin?

if we're talking about ippei stealing money from shohei - that's more straightforward, but again ohtani comes out favorably - he was the victim! which is probably why his lawyers are framing it this way.

i mean yeah, the feds could try to stick ohtani with wire fraud. i think that's a hard sell to the public. there exists such a thing as prosecutorial discretion. wire fraud is what you charge cryptofrauds with because we don't have adequate laws on the books to deal with cryptoscams. it's what you use to get capone with, where everybody knows a crime has been committed but it's too hard to pin.

just don't see what crime ohtani's supposed to have committed here.

dayotm

(and yeah yeah i know they got capone on tax evasion, not wire fraud. which brings me back to another point - yes this came out of a federal investigation, but one by the IRS, not by the DOJ or OFAC which is what you'd expect if wire fraud or AML were involved here. maybe the IRS is mad that shohei is tax-maxxing via his contract deferral, but afaict the contract reduced his state tax burden - didn't see any articles talking about federal.)

My biggest takeaway is I'm seriously thinking about going to Ippei's dad Hokkaido-style Izakaya in OC. Will report back.

My biggest takeaway is I'm seriously thinking about going to Ippei's dad Hokkaido-style Izakaya in OC. Will report back.

imagine how good you have to be to win multiple mvp awards, earn a $700m contract, etc. while throwing games

that's just showing people up

I’ve seen this kind of face at a basketball game before. He needs the PG on the bench with 16 points to score four more with six minutes left https://t.co/SbuhU45o3d

— spencer🦕 (@spen______) March 23, 2024

imagine how good you have to be to win multiple mvp awards, earn a $700m contract, etc. while throwing games

that's just showing people up

― mookieproof, Saturday, March 23, 2024 1:12 PM (fifty-seven minutes ago)

https://i.imgur.com/bVeXeGR.jpeg

honestly i'd be pretty impressed if he were betting on oakland-kentucky

― mookieproof, Thursday, March 21, 2024 2:06 PM (two days ago)

https://i.imgur.com/BH8qp4z.png

https://i.imgur.com/ApSaZPt.png

Timmy never threw games but he definitely threw while high according to walking hernia Aubrey Huff

framing ohtani degen gambling as wire fraud/money laundering - who is the victim here? what is the harm to society? sports betting as wire fraud - who is being defrauded here? sports betting as money laundering - who is shohei laundering money on behalf of? is shohei washing money for putin?

if we're talking about ippei stealing money from shohei - that's more straightforward, but again ohtani comes out favorably - he was the victim! which is probably why his lawyers are framing it this way.

― 龜, Saturday, March 23, 2024 10:45 AM bookmarkflaglink

i mean yeah, the feds could try to stick ohtani with wire fraud. i think that's a hard sell to the public. there exists such a thing as prosecutorial discretion. wire fraud is what you charge cryptofrauds with because we don't have adequate laws on the books to deal with cryptoscams. it's what you use to get capone with, where everybody knows a crime has been committed but it's too hard to pin.

just don't see what crime ohtani's supposed to have committed here.

― 龜, Saturday, March 23, 2024 10:50 AM bookmarkflaglink

Agreed. Felony requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt, and this is nowhere near there yet. The sine qua non of wire fraud, either on its own or as a predicate act to a conspiracy to commit wire fraud (or RICO aka Racketeering) felony charge, is specific intent "with intent to defraud" and, if part of a conspiracy, knowledge of the conspiracy.

Putting a memo on a wire transfer as "loan" is not slam-dunk circumstantial evidence of an intent to defraud in itself but it certainly might bear some explaining if it lands a person in the middle of an investigation. There could be all kinds of elaborate mechanisms to defraud someone or launder ill gotten proceeds but without specific intent there is no crime. Sho could be a victim here, so could the translator. It all depends what the evidence shows. Prosecutors tend to go for slam dunk cases but otoh they do like to make examples out of celebrities :( Out come could be anythign from immunity to witness to a plea to total exoneration. It's a shame and I hope he has a good criminal lawyer.

This seems like a less than great thing to only find out now

https://theathletic.com/5364216/2024/03/23/shohei-ohtani-ippei-mizuhara-biography-inaccuracies/?source=user_shared_article

This is too weird

Mizhuara’s connection to Okajima seems to have been exaggerated over time. Multiple news reports have linked Mizuhara to Okajima over different periods. That includes a Nippon.com story from 2021 that said Mizuhara was Okajima’s interpreter during the 2010 season with the Red Sox. But in addition to the Red Sox’s denial, archives from the Boston Globe in April and May 2010 name Ryo Shinkawa as Okajima’s interpreter. The team’s media guide from 2010 lists two people as team interpreters that season, but not Mizuhara.

In devising a media guide, the standard protocol requires trust between the media relations department and the rest of the employees, according to interviews with media relations staffers from other clubs, who requested anonymity to speak candidly. The media relations department does not have the time to vet the resume claims of each employee, the staffers said. A media relations staffer will often send a proposed biographic thumbnail for pre-approval to the employee, or ask the employee for biographical information in publishing the guide.

Anyone else watch the presser?

I'll say this much: for all of the mists of uncertainty we had in the past week, Ohtani going full-on "he stole from me" would be a totally crazy position to take if it was not true. It would open him up to all kinds of jeopardy, both civil and criminal.

— Craig Calcaterra (@craigcalcaterra) March 25, 2024

I think it's clear by this point that Ippei controlled all of Shohei's finances, investments, accounting, PR, sponsorships, sports agent decisions, charity, romantic match-making and FTX endorsements:

https://i.imgur.com/EuvqF6c.jpeg

“He’s obviously one of the most electric players in all of sports right now,” Sam Bankman-Fried, whose net worth Forbes pegs at $26.5 billion, told CNN in a phone interview.

Last season Ohtani — whose compensation for the sponsorship will be paid entirely in cryptocurrency and FTX equity — became the first player in MLB history to be selected as an All-Star as both a pitcher and a batter.

“We are hoping to have a similarly revolutionary impact on what fintech means and what personal finance apps look like,” Bankman-Fried said.

Ok back to Ippei this is such a weird and awkward story and obviously someone/everyone is still lying and there are sooooo many incredible leaps of faith, I really want a detailed timeline of what happened in Korea from the day of game 1 to right before game 2. There's an amazing oral history in there I bet... particularly the ESPN report that Rob Manfred was made aware of the scandal 15+ hours before Ohtani claims he first learned that there was money missing from his account and that something was amiss.

I'll admit to being 100% blinded by love, but I believe Ohtani after watching the presser