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This question was brought to Yahoo Sports via text message from a veteran scout. A person whose vocation is information and its collection. Usually the type that is well known, in the group, and present in the mix, or at least on the periphery.
“What happened to Shohei today?”
This type of investigation is indicative of the atmosphere of curiosity and confusion that pervades baseball today. MLB’s brightest supernova, a two-time MVP and two-way dynamo who signed a $700 million contract from the Los Angeles Dodgers, has been implicated in a federal gambling scandal involving his longtime interpreter and friend, Ippei Mizuhara. It turned out that there was.
The lack of meaningful information in the days leading up to Ohtani’s address to the media on Monday only fueled speculation and speculation. And even after releasing a pre-written statement through rookie interpreter Will Ireton in which he portrayed himself as a victim of crimes at the hands of Mizuhara, Ohtani remains the subject of intense controversy. There is. His comments on Monday painted a picture of how Ohtani and his legal representatives plan to move forward — total denial, total legal innocence, Ippei’s scorched earth — but three more sleeps away from America. Even now, with the side’s opening day just around the corner, there are far more questions than answers regarding Suwon. It was the most serious gambling scandal to rock Major League Baseball since Ohtani and Pete Rose were suspended for game gambling in 1989.
Through this situation, the baseball world is thrown into confusion and cannot hide its surprise.
After the news broke on Wednesday, speculation reigned supreme amid conflicting stories and a lack of concrete facts. The most popular conspiracy theory among baseball insiders, which is completely baseless and vehemently denied by Ohtani on Monday, is that the $700 million man is the real gambler and paid Mizuhara for the fall. It was. Others in the industry were skeptical that the two-time AL MVP was betting on sports, but thought Ohtani must have known about the interpreter’s debt.
But even before Ohtani tried to set the record straight, the overwhelming consensus within the industry was that he was not a gambler.
“Ohtani never says anything like that about other sports,” a former teammate told Yahoo Sports. “I’ve seen him in the clubhouse, on the plane, on the bus. This guy spends his time talking to people about his swing, watching his swing, looking at the bullpen. This guy. is obsessed with baseball. He’s not setting up a prize-pick parlay.”
Another retired major leaguer said: “There’s no chance he was gambling. He’s a machine.”
The most abhorrent scenario of all of this, the disaster of disasters, was the idea that the best players in the game were betting on MLB games. It seems even more outlandish now that Ohtani has flatly denied any involvement in bookmaker Matthew Bowyer’s alleged illegal operations.
It’s worth noting that gambling on non-baseball games (which Ohtani also denies) is routinely legal in 40 states. Most, if not all, MLB teams have fantasy football leagues with money involved. On fall weekends, the clubhouse is filled with conversation about wins and losses in college football.
But baseball? That’s totally out of the question. Despite gambling becoming increasingly pervasive in American sports and normalized within MLB clubhouses, the consensus among MLB players interviewed by Yahoo Sports was that they signed $700 million contracts. This means that no one, let alone superstars, actively gambles on baseball games.
“No one is stupid enough to bet on baseball anymore,” said another former teammate.
But even if Ohtani is legally acquitted, some industry insiders are skeptical about his agent, Nez Valero. Valero, whose relationship with Ohtani predates the superstar’s MLB debut, has been on Ohtani’s shoulders for the past seven years, always controlling the information that comes and goes. In fact, Ohtani mentioned his own agent’s role in the matter multiple times on Monday.
But since the big news broke last week about his biggest client, the CAA agent has disappeared from public view.
“His agent hasn’t been doing himself any favors, especially since there hasn’t been much talk,” said a current player agent.
For many in baseball circles, changing the story from Ohtani’s camp arouses suspicion. And Valero doesn’t have much faith in himself, given his role as Ryan Braun’s agent in another of this century’s biggest MLB scandals, Ryan Braun’s positive PED test and its aftermath. I haven’t sent it.
In February 2012, an arbitrator revoked his 50-game suspension, making Brown the first baseball player to challenge a drug-related penalty. A year later, Yahoo Sports reported that Biogenesis documents included Brown’s name. For more than a year, Brown deceived, misled, and misled investigators, the media, and the public, and Valero also allegedly played a role in the cover-up. A lawsuit was also filed by Ralph Sasson, a former friend of Brown’s, alleging that Valero paid him $5,000 to find information about test collector Dino Laurenzi Jr. (the suit was ultimately dismissed). .
As another agent summed up, “I expect all this from the same guy who was running around in Ryan Braun’s piss.”
Although Valero is not said to have handled Brown’s urine sample, his attitude toward the agent is clear. Valero has performed obfuscation at the highest level and on the largest scale to date. Some people think he is not worthy of suspicion.
There is no doubt that at some point, people in Ohtani’s corner, including Valero, misdirected their cash cows. The player also deserves some criticism for his apparent apathy and lack of responsibility. But despite public misgivings about Ohtani’s entourage, it remains unlikely that MLB will discipline the Dodgers slugger, at least in the short term.
There is something similar to precedent here. When it was revealed that former Major League Baseball pitcher Jared Cossart for the Phillies, Astros, Marlins, and Padres was placing bets with an unauthorized bookmaker, MLB learned that Cossart had never bet on baseball. The player was only fined. So unless it becomes clear that Ohtani has put a coin into the sport he has come to define, something he, Mizuhara, Bowyer representatives and industry experts all deny, the game’s The face remains on the field.
Others can only wonder and wait.
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