UNDER REVIEW
MLB opens formal investigation of Ohtani and his interpreter amid gambling, theft allegations When it comes to video games, Soto doesn’t mind striking out
Major League Baseball has opened a formal investigation into illegal gambling and theft allegations involving Los Angeles Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani and his interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara.
Mizuhara was let go from the team Wednesday following reports from the Los Angeles Times and ESPN about his alleged ties to an illegal bookmaker and claims from Ohtani’s attorneys that the two-way Japanese star had been the victim of a “massive theft.”
“Major League Baseball has been gathering information since we learned about the allegations involving Shohei Ohtani and Ippei (Mizuhara) from the news media,” the commissioner’s office said in a statement Friday. “Earlier today, our Department of Investigations began their formal process investigating the matter.”
Ohtani and the Dodgers were in Seoul, South Korea, for their opening series against the San Diego Padres when reports were published about alleged ties between the 39-year-old Mizuhara and an illegal bookmaker. The teams returned to the U.S. after Thursday night’s game and MLB did not make a public comment until announcing the investigation on Friday.
The IRS confirmed Thursday that Mizuhara and Mathew Bowyer, the alleged illegal bookmaker, are under criminal investigation through the agency’s Los Angeles Field Office. IRS Criminal Investigation spokesperson Scott Villiard said he could not provide additional details.
The Associated Press has been unable reach Mizuhara for comment. It is not clear if he has an attorney. Mizuhara was with the team in South Korea up until his firing. It’s unknown if he left the country.
MLB established its Department of Investigations in 2008 following allegations in the 2007 report by former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell into the use of performance-enhancing drugs in the sport. The unit investigated three-time MVP Alex Rodriguez, who was suspended for the 2014 season for violations of the drug agreement and labor contract in connection with the Biogenesis investigation.
More recently, the unit probed Dodgers pitcher Trevor Bauer, leading to a 194-game suspension in 2022 under the sport’s domestic violence, sexual assault and child abuse policy. A San Diego woman said Bauer beat and sexually abused her, an accusation the pitcher denied.
Ohtani is baseball’s bigger star, an unprecedented two-way player who has excelled at the plate and on the mound. He was a two-time AL MVP with the
Los Angeles Angels before leaving as a free agent to sign a record $700 million, 10-year contract with the Dodgers in December.
Ohtani has not issued any statements and did not speak to reporters in the Dodgers clubhouse after Thursday night’s game.
The Dodgers are set to resume the regular season with their home opener next Thursday. The team has exhibition games scheduled against the crosstown Angels for Sunday, Monday and Tuesday.
Mizuhara, Ohtani’s personal interpreter and close friend, told ESPN on Tuesday that his bets were on international soccer, the NBA, the NFL and college football. MLB rules prohibit players and team employees from wagering — even legally on baseball — and also ban betting on other sports with illegal or offshore bookmakers.
“I never bet on baseball,” Mizuhara told ESPN. “That’s 100%. I knew that rule ... We have a meeting about that in spring training.”
Diane Bass, Bowyer’s attorney, told the AP on Thursday that Mizuhara was placing bets with Bowyer on international soccer, but not baseball. Bass also said Bowyer had no contact with Ohtani.
The MLB gambling policy is posted in every locker room. Betting on baseball — legally or not — is punishable with a one-year ban from the sport. The penalty for betting on other sports illegally is at the commissioner’s discretion. Sports gambling is illegal in California, even as 38 states and the District of Columbia allow some form of it.
ESPN said Mizuhara told the outlet Tuesday that Ohtani had paid his gambling debts — which totaled well over $1 million — at Mizuhara’s request. After the statement from Ohtani’s attorneys saying the player was a victim of theft, ESPN says Mizuhara changed his story Wednesday and claimed Ohtani had no knowledge of the gambling debts and had not transferred any money to bookmakers.
“I’m terrible (at gambling). Never going to do it again. Never won any money,” Mizuhara said. “I mean, I dug myself a hole and it kept on getting bigger, and it meant I had to bet bigger to get out of it and just kept on losing. It’s like a snowball effect.”
It’s the biggest gambling scandal for baseball since Pete Rose agreed to a lifetime ban in 1989 after an investigation for MLB by lawyer John Dowd found Rose placed numerous bets on the Cincinnati Reds to win from 1985-87 while playing for and managing the team.
When A.J. Preller informed Juan Soto that he had been traded to the Yankees, the Padres general manager reached a preoccupied 25-year-old.
“When I received that call, I was actually playing Nintendo with my friends,” Soto said over an introductory Zoom call in December. “It’s one of my hobbies to play video games and to spend time with my friends and have a good time.”
Perhaps Soto was using the console to take his mind off the trade rumors that had been swirling since the end of the 2023 season and throughout the Winter Meetings. However, the slugger doesn’t always use video games to get away from baseball.
The three-time All-Star considers MLB: The Show, a PlayStation staple, to be the game he’s best at. Big surprise there.
But instead of launching home runs as his digitized self, Soto prefers a challenge that drives real-life pitchers crazy.
“I like to face myself and strike him out,” a laughing Soto told the Daily News. “Unless I’m winning by a lot! If I’m winning by a lot, I put it right in the middle so the guy can hit it and feel good about myself.”
The lefty swinger, known for his elite ability to control the zone, added that he’s easier to K in the video game than he is in major league games.
Soto would not reveal his go-to sequence for striking himself out, as he feared he might provide useful information to pitchers that he has to face in the real world.
“I cannot give you that!” he said, his tone comical and serious all at once.
So The News decided to ask the Yankees’ undisputed video game expert what he would do to get Soto out.
“In The Show? I don’t know,” Tommy Kahnle said. “But in real life, he got me the first time I faced him. I didn’t really know who he was. I knew he was just a young, upcoming kid. And a first-pitch fastball, he took me off the wall. And then the next at-bat was in the playoffs. Three changeups, strike out!”
Kahnle, thankful that he no longer has to face Soto on the mound, reasoned that he would probably attack him the same way in The Show if he were pitching as himself. His changeup is his No. 1 weapon, after all.
Speaking of weapons, Soto’s hobby is not limited to baseball. He also plays Call of Duty, though not as much as he used to.
“I’m not on [Blake] Snell’s level,” Soto said, referring to his ex-Padres teammate and a known Twitch streamer. “He’s crazy good. I was good, but I stopped playing it for a little bit and they changed the game. “Now I’m bad. I haven’t played in a while.”
It’s unusual to hear Soto say he’s bad at something, but COD isn’t the only game that gives him fits. He said that FIFA is “the game I’m worst at.”
“I like to play everything,” Soto said, adding that NBA 2K is also in rotation. “I tell the guys I play everything. I’m average in everything. I’m not really good at one, but I’m average.”
At this point, some Yankees fans may be worrying that Soto spends too much time playing video games.
However, he doesn’t bring them into the clubhouse. Rather, it’s an activity reserved for the end of the work day when Soto has returned home or to a hotel.
“When I’m here, I’m focusing on one thing: how we figure out how to win a game,” he said. Bringing video games to the clubhouse, I don’t think that’s gonna be good for me. I don’t know, maybe for somebody else it works. It helps them out to, I don’t know, relieve some stress.”
Kahnle has a noticeably different approach. While the reliever’s young children cut into his video game habits over the winter, the long baseball campaign offers plenty of downtime. Kahnle often spends it with a suitcase-like gaming station. When it folds open, the top half houses a TV, while the bottom half stores a PlayStation, controllers, games and other accessories.
During the season, Kahnle can often be seen playing the system in front of his locker before games. It’s as much a must-have on road trips as his favorite glove, and it’s a hit on team flights.
“I guess I do it almost every day during the regular season. I started doing it in 2017,” Kahnle said. “Then, I was doing it more in a back room. Now it’s kind of gravitated to my locker because I’m just too lazy to walk all the way over there. For me, it keeps my mind off the game, I guess. You’re just kind of not always thinking about baseball.”
While Soto doesn’t want to play in the clubhouse like Kahnle — he said his teammate won’t tempt him — he does take his video games seriously.
Soto wears a headset so that he can talk to friends and other gamers online, and he’s been using a customized Yankees controller since the trade. The controller is half navy blue and half pinstriped. It’s complete with his No. 22 and the words “Soto Shuffle,” as well a silhouette of his signature move in the batter’s box.
Soto said the controller came courtesy of SCUF Gaming, a company that specializes in these sorts of things for professional gamers.
He said the company was going to make him a Nationals controller when he played for the team, but Washington traded him to San Diego in 2022 before SCUF could finish the job. So Soto received a Padres controller instead.
Perhaps there’s some recency bias, but Soto said the Yankees controller is “one of the best I’ve ever had.” The question now is whether it will be his last.
“I don’t know,” the impending free agent said with a smile. “We’ll see.”
For the Knicks every game is important.
But the next four games are non-negotiable for a team fancying itself a deep playoff contender.
The Knicks return home from a four-game road trip with a 3-1 record, but Thursday’s loss to the Denver Nuggets — coupled with an Orlando Magic victory over the New Orleans Pelicans — moved the Knicks from fourth to fifth place in the Eastern Conference playoff picture.
New York’s last three games were against Western Conference playoff contenders. The next four on the docket are against teams headed to the draft lottery.
And while the Knicks respect every opponent — good or bad — there is no room for blunders against four straight opponents with nothing left to play for but ping pong balls this season.
Beginning with a Brooklyn Nets team four-and-a-half games out of the East’s 10th seed, the Knicks — shorthanded and all — must handle business to secure their standing as an outright playoff team.
STANDINGS CHECK
As of Friday morning, the Knicks (41-28) own the East’s No. 5 seed outright. They are:
l 3.5 games behind the No. 2 Milwaukee Bucks
l Two games behind the No. 3 Cleveland Cavaliers
l A half-game behind the fourthplace Magic
l 2.5 games ahead of the No. 6 Indiana Pacers
l And three games ahead of both the seventh-place Miami Heat and eighth place Philadelphia 76ers
The Knicks have the 10th easiest remaining schedule, according to Positive Residual’s NBA calendar, and the eighth-lightest slate of games, per NBA Draft Lottery projection site Tankathon.
For reference, No. 3 Milwaukee owns the fifth-toughest remaining schedule, No. 4 Orlando and No. 6 Indiana own the 13th and 14th most difficult schedules, the Miami Heat own the fourth-lightest schedule, and both the No. 3 Cavaliers and No. 8 76ers rank 19th and 20th in strength of remaining schedule.
WHO ARE THEY PLAYING?
The Knicks host the 11th-seeded Nets in a 1 p.m. tipoff at Madison Square Garden on Saturday. The
Knicks will be favored against a reeling Brooklyn team, but head coach Tom Thibodeau warned about the challenge of a cross-country flight coupled with an early start.
“This game ends and then you’re challenged in a different way getting back and we’ve got an early start next game against Brooklyn,” Thibodeau said after Thursday’s loss in Denver. “But just keep focusing on one day at a time. Put everything you have into it, get a look at the game today, fix our mistakes, get ready for the next one. “
Two days later, the Knicks host the Detroit Pistons, who currently own the second-worst record in the NBA behind only the Washington Wizards.
The Knicks then fly up north to face the Toronto Raptors, who are 2.5 games worse than the Nets and have lost nine of their last 10 games.
The trip to Canada will be a trip down memory lane facing both Immanuel Quickley and RJ Barrett, the players the Knicks traded to the Raptors for OG Anunoby and Precious Achiuwa.
The four-game stretch concludes with a trip to San Antonio against Rookie of the Year frontrunner Victor Wembanyama’s Spurs.
The 7-4 Wembanyama is averaging 20 points, 10 rebounds and 3.5 blocks per game in first season, but the Knicks should be heavily favored against a 15-54 Spurs team at the bottom of the Western Conference standings.
That’s a 76-201 combined record shared by the Knicks’ next four opponents. For reference, the Knicks own a 21-2 record against teams not currently positioned as Play-In Tournament teams or better this season.
WHAT ABOUT THE COMPETITION?
The No. 2 Bucks have three tough opponents up on the docket: hosting MVP candidate Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the West’s No. 1-seeded Oklahoma City Thunder then Lebron James’ Los Angeles Lakers, followed by a date with the No. 5 New Orleans Pelicans before a stop in Atlanta against the Play-In Tournament-bound 10th-seed Hawks.
The No. 3 Cavaliers have two tough upcoming road games: first at Minnesota against Anthony Edwards and the West’s No. 3 Timberwolves, then out to Miami for a matchup with the No. 7 Heat. Cleveland, however, then has back-to-back matchups against the
Hornets.
The fourth-seeded Magic enjoy a five-game home stand starting with three Western Conference contenders in the Sacramento Kings, Golden State Warriors and Los Angeles Clippers. They then play two lottery-bound teams: the Portland Trail Blazers and Memphis Grizzlies.
No. 6 Indiana faces a daunting task: a four-game road trip featuring pit stops in San Francisco against Stephen Curry’s Warriors and Los Angeles for matchups against both the Lakers and Clippers before a trip to Chicago for a game against the No. 9 Bulls.
The No. 7 Heat have a fourgame home stand on the docket with matchups against the Pelicans, the No. 3 Cavaliers and the Warriors before hosting the Blazers.
And the Joel Embiid-less 76ers lost to the Phoenix Suns in their first stop of a four-game road trip. They face the Lakers, Clippers, Kings, Clippers and Cavaliers next on the schedule. The toughest four-game stretch of any team clustered between seeds Nos. 2 and 8 in the East. 17-win
Charlotte
WHAT ARE SOME POSSIBLE SCENARIOS?
If the Knicks win all four and the Cavaliers — without Donovan Mitchell — split their next four, 2-2, both teams will be tied with 45-28 records and nine games remaining on the schedule.
The Knicks won the season series against the Cavaliers, 2-1, and thus will finish with the higher seed in the event of a tie.
If the Bucks split their next four games, two apiece, they will own a 47-27 record with eight games left on the schedule. Under this scenario, the No. 2 seed would be in play for the Knicks.
If the Magic lose three in a row to Western Conference playoff contenders (Sacramento, Golden State, Los Angeles Clippers) and win against the Trail Blazers, they will own a 43-31 record. The Knicks would own the No. 4 seed outright — at minimum — in this scenario depending on how the Cavaliers and Bucks fair over their next four games.
If the Heat flip the switch and win four in a row, they will sit with a 42-31 record, which would put the East’s No. 5 seed in play for Miami. A No. 4 vs. No. 5 first-round matchup between the Knicks and Heat is viewed as a worst-case scenario given the Heat eliminated the Knicks in the second round of the playoffs last season.
If the playoffs began Friday, the Knicks would finish without homecourt advantage drawing a firstround matchup against the Magic. Orlando is 3-1 against New York this season, but the Knicks won the season series finale by 24 and held the Magic to only 74 points.
HOW HAVE THE KNICKS PLAYED ENTERING THIS STRETCH?
The Knicks lost to the Nuggets but won six of their eight games prior to Thursday night. They own the second-best defensive rating in basketball since the Dec. 31 trade for Anunoby despite Anunoby missing significant time after undergoing elbow surgery in early February.
In fact, the Knicks remain above-.500 with a 12-11 record since both Anunoby and Randle left the rotation after a Jan. 27 victory over the Miami Heat.
The Knicks beat the Warriors, 119-112, despite Anunoby missing the game for maintenance on his surgically-repaired elbow.
They are 15-2 in games Anunoby has played this season.
Stetson had UConn’s full attention.
That was bad news for the Hatters. Donovan Clingan scored 19 points and Cam Spencer had 15 as top-seeded UConn began defense of its national championship by cruising past 16th-seeded Stetson 91-52 Friday in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
The top-ranked Huskies (32-3) will face ninth-seeded Northwestern on Sunday in the second round of the East Region.
Stephan Swenson scored 20 points for the Hatters (22-13), the ASun champions who were making their first appearance in the NCAA Tournament. They never had a chance against UConn, which scored the first eight points and went on to its most lopsided NCAA victory since beating Chattanooga by 56 in the first round of the 2009 tournament.
“It’s exactly how you want to start a game like this where — you’re in March Madness. You know the history of these No. 1s or high seeds and just we took away all hope in that game from them early on with the defense, with the offense, with the relentlessness,” Huskies coach Dan Hurley said.
Less than a week after the Huskies won the Big East Tournament at Madison Square Garden, they were back in New York City, a few subway stops south at Barclays Center in Brooklyn.
As usual, their fans showed up in droves. They were loud early but ended up settling in for a relaxing couple of hours that probably felt more like a November nonconference game than the start of March Madness.
Clingan slammed home an alley-oop from Tristen Newton to make it 8-0 with 17:16 left in the first half.
Stephon Castle made a 3 to push the lead to 20 with 9:06 left, and it was up to 31 when the 7-foot-2 Clingan got free underneath for another easy layup with 5:00 left.
“We wanted to impose our will early and I think we did a good job of that,” Huskies guard Hassan Diarra said. “But we wanted to keep our foot on the gas the whole time and I think we did an amazing job of that.”
Newton’s straight-on 3 gave UConn 50 points with a little under two minutes left in the half.
Newton, a first-team All-American, finished with 13 points and eight assists.
At the half it was 52-19. The Huskies had shot 68.8%., committed only three turnovers and outrebounded the Hatters 18-11 for good measure.
“They just had our respect at a high level coming in,” Hurley said. “This week we were nervous about the matchup because of the shooting. I thought they were the hardest 16, and as the overall No. 1 seed, I was surprised that in my opinion we got the best 16.”
Less than 20 seconds into the second half, Castle scored on a baseline drive and was fouled. He converted the three-point play to make it 55-19.
The Hatters picked it up the rest of the second half and the Huskies cooled off, but still UConn — the most efficient offensive team in the country — reached 90 points for the ninth time this season.
The Huskies have won seven straight NCAA Tournament games by double-digits after their dominant run to a title last year as a four seed.
UConn is trying to become the first team to repeat as men’s NCAA Tournament champions since 2007, when Florida did it under then-coach Billy Donovan with a team that included Joakim Noah and Al Horford. Stetson coach Donnie Jones was an assistant on those Gators teams. He said he sees a lot of similarities in UConn: depth, size, balance.
“So it’s not one or two guys that’s going to get you to the finals. It’s going to be your team, who can score on a given night. So they are very efficient offensively. They don’t beat themselves. They rebound. They defend. They do a great job,” Jones said.
“So that doesn’t guarantee you are going to win it, but it gives you a chance. We always felt, can you put yourself in that circle and have a shot. And with those kind of weapons, I could see them having a great opportunity for that.”
MILESTONES
Stetson’s Jalen Blackmon, who scored 42 in the ASun title game against Austin Peay, became the program’s career leader with 744 points. The junior scored 14 against UConn . ... The Huskies’ 32 victories are the second-most in program history behind the 2013-14 national championship team (33) and most under Hurley in six seasons.
UP NEXT
The Huskies have never played Northwestern, and last played a Big Ten team in the NCAA Tournament in 2021, losing to Maryland in the first round.