Los Angeles sports fans are stunned by gambling scandal
It is Friday. Angelenos say they are stunned after the Los Angeles Dodgers fired star player Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter over a gambling scandal. Plus, a deeper look at new laws to address California’s intertwined crises of mental illness and homelessness.
Fans of the Los Angeles Dodgers were thrilled in December when Shohei Ohtani, the two-way baseball superstar with a squeaky clean image, signed a blockbuster deal to join the team.
With $700 million over ten years, Ohtani became the highest-paid baseball player ever. Fans were even happier with the fact that he agreed to defer most of that salary to free up money so the team could build a winning squad around him.
Although Ohtani had been famous for years, including during his previous six seasons with the Los Angeles Angels and when he played in the Japanese professional league before that, his stardom reached another level with the Dodgers. He immediately jumped into position as the face of not only the franchise, but Major League Baseball as well. Billboards and murals featuring the pitcher and slugger in Dodger blue have appeared throughout the city.
Now, next bombshell reporting by ESPN And The Los Angeles Times This week, with Ohtani almost at the center of a gambling scandal involving his longtime interpreter and close friend, many fans say they are baffled, but are withholding judgment until more information emerges.
“Shocked. Shocked,” said longtime Dodgers fan Lisa Jaramillo, 61, as she walked through LA Live, the downtown complex that includes the Crypto.com Arena and a cluster of sports bars. “You know, I need to hear both sides.”
Ohtani’s interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara, told ESPN in a lengthy interview on Tuesday that the baseball star voluntarily transferred money to an illegal bookmaker in Orange County to help Mizuhara, who was struggling with a gambling addiction. The outlet saw financial records showing money had been sent in Ohtani’s name.
But the stories about what happened changed in less than a day: On Wednesday, the Dodgers abruptly announced that Mizuhara had been fired and Ohtani’s representatives accused the interpreter of stealing millions of dollars from the slugger to pay off gambling debts.
That same day, Mizuhara disavowed his previous statements to ESPN, saying Ohtani knew nothing about the transfers.
The news was especially stunning because of Ohtani’s brotherly relationship with Mizuhara, who had been his interpreter since signing with the Angels in 2017. The two were seen joking in the Dodgers dugout for hours before the gambling stories broke.
When I was at the Dodgers’ spring training camp in Arizona last month, the only time I saw Ohtani in the clubhouse, he was sitting at his locker and talking exclusively to Mizuhara. The reporters covering Ohtani treated Mizuhara as a de facto gatekeeper to the star.
This week was supposed to be a joyous one for the Dodgers as they opened the season with two games in South Korea against the San Diego Padres. Instead, the team was suddenly marred by another scandal.
There was plenty of speculation on sports radio and social media on Thursday about what actually happened and whether Ohtani was aware of the payments to the bookmaker. Some wondered whether the theft charge was a way to protect Ohtani from misconduct after money was transferred in his name to an illegal bookmaker. The sudden change in stories fueled skepticism in Los Angeles.
“As a Dodgers fan, I want nothing more than for what I read to be the truth,” Travis Rodgers, a commentator on ESPN LA said during a live broadcast on Thursday from the Islands Restaurant in Manhattan Beach, referring to claims that Ohtani was unaware of the transfers. “All I know is that this story stinks. On the surface, it makes no sense.”
Fans told me Thursday that they were inclined to believe Mizuhara had cheated on Ohtani and wondered whether the Dodgers had done their due diligence when he joined the organization.
But above all, fans said they hoped that whatever the outcome of the ongoing investigation, the team’s performance would not suffer.
Giovanni Gochez, 34, a Colorado resident who grew up in the area and is a die-hard Dodgers fan, was in Los Angeles with his family on Thursday, speaking in the shadow of the new Kobe Bryant statue. He said he made it through the entire 18 innings of the team’s Game 3 victory in the 2018 World Series.
“I mean, everyone does things behind closed doors,” Gochez said. “As a fan, I’m still rooting.”
And before you go: good news
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art has unveiled a busy slate of shows for the spring and summer season, headlined by exhibitions from artists like Kara Walker, Mary Lovelace O’Neal and others.
The museum kicked off the first of several Northern California-themed shows planned for the spring on March 16 with an exhibition of new works by Lovelace O’Neal, the famed Bay Area painter.
On April 6, the museum will open an exhibit celebrating the 50th anniversary of Creative Growth, an Oakland nonprofit that supports artists with disabilities. The museum will also separately exhibit a work by one of the organization’s artists, William Scott, in April as part of its community-oriented mural series.