Latest On Ohtani Gambling Scandal

If there's anything Ippei Mizuhara loves more than gambling, allegedly, it might be lying, allegedly. We didn't find out much new information over the weekend about the actual gambling debt repayment at the center of the Shohei scandal. But we did find out that his translator will apparently lie about anything. And everything. And has lied about anything and everything. 

It's become pretty clear that one of the reasons why it’s so hard to get any of the facts straight on this whole Shohei translator gambling scandal is that apparently, Ippei doesn’t get facts straight. Period. Like, as a general rule, he doesn't really do facts. Which is a pretty brutal trait for a translator.

Usually you would think that a translator would be all about accuracy right? Most important thing. Since that’s the job... Translating what somebody else says as accurately as possible. Unless of course you stole $4 mil plus from that person, in which case you might not translate anything accurately at all. 

Look, I’m still not sure whether it was story A… where Shohei covered his buddy’s gambling debts. Or story B, where Ippei stole the money and Shohei had no idea. Or some third story or something in between. 

But what does seem pretty clear is that Ippei has changed his story too many times to be believable. And he’s been way too comfortable telling way too many versions of this story. And he clearly plays it way too fast and loose with facts to be anyone’s translator, let alone the translator for one of the most famous and influential athletes on the planet.

I mean this guy even lied about graduating from college? This guy claims he graduated from UC Riverside… but UCR not only debunked that, they said he never even attended. They have no record of him there. Whoops. That's not ockwood or anything.

I'm just relieved it was Riverside and not Santa Barbara because that would have been a reason to go. Then again, UCSB would have never let this dude run around claiming he was an alum, they would have nipped that crap in the bud. That doesn't fly with us, Riverside sure, Santa Cruz, maybe, no offense Alvie, but not for my Gauchos. Clearly that liar isn’t gaucho material.  He’s not, well, whatever the riverside mascot is.

That wasn’t all though, the dude also lied about his professional credentials. He lied about working as a translator for the Red Sox in 2010 prior to meeting Shohei. And he lied about working as a translator for the Yankees during spring training in 2012.

That's a lot of lies. Does this dude think translating just means making crap up? Because it certainly seems like it. I mean, is this dude even a translator? Was that also a lie? Does this dude even speak Japanese? Is that a lie too?

We already think we barely know anything about Shohei, imagine if everything we’ve ever heard from Shohei through Ippei was just Ippei making stuff up. Sounds ridiculous but he’s lied about everything else, how can we trust anything from that dude right now?

Yo Team Shohei, ever hear of a background check? Like I get it, the Angels maybe didn’t do a huge check on the guy because he came with Shohei… but shouldn’t you do a check on any employee? Even just a basic resume check? Like make sure any part of the resume at all is legit? 

But maybe I can understand how he could have slipped between the cracks with Angels for six years. What I don’t get is how he got hired in the first place. Forget due diligence, it seems like Team Shohei did zero diligence on this one. Their diligence was, this guy says he translates, he says he worked for the Red Sox and Yankees, he’s a UC guy… well damn we’re sold. He’s hired.

Of course, the conspiracy theorists out there will say this is all part of the smoke screen. That Shohei is the degenerate and this is all a campaign to make Ippei look shady and guilty. 

Maybe. ... Because the dude absolutely looks shady and guilty. It absolutely is shady to lie about your college degree and previous employment on your resume, obviously. It’s not the kind of thing that totally innocent fall guys do. It’s actually exactly the kind of thing that reckless crooks who steal millions and run up massive gambling debts do.

But I know, I know, for some of you, you made up your mind already. For some of you, Shohei is Pete Rose and Michael Jordan and Phil Mickelson and Wayne Gretzky’s wife all rolled into one. He’ll never be able to shake the conspiracy theories so he might as well embrace them. Shohei’s walk up music for his Dodger Stadium debut on Thursday should just be the x-files theme. And then he could come out for his first Dodgers AB in LA with his helmet covered in tin foil. 

Personally, I’m still trying to figure out what the hell is really going on here and what actually happened. Because we’ve heard like 4 versions of the story so far and none of them are convincing. Shohei is supposedly set to speak today and we’ll probably get next to no clarification or new information from that, but maybe he says something that finally makes sense. We can only hope. But I have a feeling this will gets worse before it gets better and we’re not getting any resolution on any of this any time soon: not with the feds involved and not with mob finally saying it has begun its own investigation. Not that I expect mob to do anything to Shohei.

The only thing I know for sure is that Ippei is all about lying. It certainly looks like he also really really likes to gamble but I know without a doubt that he absolutely LOVES lying out of his ass.  Never mind the sports book, if there was a lying book, Ippei would be posted up, all day, every day, taking that lying book for all it’s worth: he’d be banned from every lying book in town.  Dude, you lie so much you don’t know even know you’re lying.