Shohei Ohtani has emphatically denied any direct or indirect betting on baseball, or any other sports, and in turn has drawn a clear line that dramatically raises the stakes for forthcoming investigations. 

The Dodgers superstar held a 12-minute press conference on Monday afternoon, counting translations, but did not take questions. But with some elements of emotion visible from the normally reserved player, Ohtani (above, left) blamed the entire episode on his former translator and close friend, Ippei Mizuhara (above, right). Ohtani claimed Mizuhara engaged in theft and fraud, and insisted he had no knowledge of the betting activity until March 20, after the Dodgers played the first two games in Seoul against the Padres.

“Ippei has been stealing money from my account and has told lies,” Ohtani said through a new translator, Will Ireton, also the Dodgers’ manager of performance operations. “I didn’t know Ippei has a gambling addiction or was in debt. … I never agreed to pay off a debt.”

That statement completely counters Mizuhara’s initial story last week to ESPN, in which he said Ohtani was aware of the interpreter’s gambling issues and knowingly helped pay off his debt.

By leaving no ambiguity in his statement, Ohtani has given even greater weight as to the forensics behind the wire transfers in question, in which millions of dollars were sent from his account to an illegal gambling operation. MLB and the Internal Revenue Service are now investigating the matter. Ohtani additionally has potentially opened himself to both civil and criminal issues should his public allegations of crime by Mizuhara be proven false.

There are still plenty of questions to be answered in this entire saga, including how Ohtani and his legal and financial representatives had no knowledge of Mizuhara’s alleged theft until last week. Such queries are likely to be part of those ongoing probes, and Ohtani said in the press conference he would cooperate with all of them. 

“I am beyond shocked,” Ohtani said. “It’s really hard to verbalize how I’m feeling at this point. The season is going to start so I will let my lawyers handle matters from here on out.”

The Ohtani situation remains a major flash point in the ongoing rise of sports betting in the U.S., one that follows a series of other troubling episodes in recent weeks across the sports industry (some tied to legal betting) and his own signing of a $700 million contract that is the largest in American team sports history.

One of the strongest unions in the U.S. over the past 50 years, in any industry, is now facing one of its toughest battles in its history. And instead of that battle happening against management, it’s occurring from within. 

The MLB Players Association, for the past week, has been enveloped in an accelerating leadership struggle in which a group of players are pushing to oust deputy director Bruce Meyer (above, left) and replace him with Harry Marino, a former MLBPA lawyer who was instrumental in the recent unionization of minor league players. Over the weekend, that battle went public with Marino, union executive director Tony Clark (above, right), and the MLBPA’s executive subcommittee each issuing public statements seeking to advance their cause. 

“Player representatives have made clear their desire to hire a different lead negotiator and pursue a different vision for collective bargaining, as well as to obtain an independent, third-party audit of the union’s financial activity,” Marino said. “The events of the past week have been messy. But the MLBPA, like all unions, is a democracy. And democracies are messy.”

Clark’s response pointed to an alleged “covert effort” to challenge the union’s historically engaged membership.

“These concerns are being discussed where they should be, in clubhouses around the league,” Clark said. “In due time, they will be resolved consistent with the traditions of this great organization.”

After further meetings over the weekend among the union’s executive subcommittee—a group of eight among the MLBPA’s 72-player board—appeared to support the status quo, at least for now.

“We still have issues to discuss, but … this is no longer a Harry Marino discussion in any respect,” the subcommittee said.

Labor and Spending Trends

The union fight is occurring amid the development of multiple fault lines within the sport, and the union. The MLBPA is still only two years removed from a bruising round of negotiations with the league, which included a 99-day lockout by the owners. Despite material gains achieved by players on multiple fronts, there remain some who believe those talks should still have yielded a better outcome. All eight members of the executive board then—including five Scott Boras clients—voted against accepting the last ownership offer, which was later approved by the full union membership. 

Spending on players is also down sharply this offseason, with player commitments this offseason amounting to about $2.9 billion, which is $1 billion less than a year ago. More than one-third of that new money is tied up in just two players: the Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto. Many teams have cut back their spending as uncertainty regarding the bankrupt Diamond Sports Group and the overall state of local television revenue have roiled the industry. 

The labor organizing of the minor leaguers, meanwhile, created an entirely new power structure within the union. The MLBPA’s executive board expanded last summer from 38 members to 72 to accommodate and reflect that expanded membership, and those 34 seats held by minor leaguers often bring different sets of concerns, experiences, and goals.