Shohei Ohtani: The face of baseball shrugging off a betting scandal to keep making history
Japanese phenomenon Ohtani has helped the Los Angeles Dodgers to the brink of the World Series after a rollercoaster 2024 in MLB
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Shohei Ohtani’s season began with him mired in a betting scandal for which he bore no fault, has included him achieving something no one else in the 150-year history of professional baseball has, and will likely end with him earning a third MVP (most valuable player) award of his career.
It is also appearing increasingly likely that he’ll lead the Los Angeles Dodgers to a World Series appearance; it would be fitting for a rollercoaster 2024 campaign to conclude with the face of Major League Baseball (MLB) gleefully lifting the Commissioner’s Trophy aloft.
Put simply, Ohtani is a baseball phenomenon. He is an icon in his baseball-mad homeland of Japan and has become the sport’s biggest star in the USA, doing things no other player can.
Having dominated Japanese baseball for half a decade with the superbly-named Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters, he made the move to the United States in 2018 as a 23-year-old and joined the Los Angeles Angels. The history of Japanese stars making the switch to MLB is a mixed bag, to say the least. For every Ichiro Suzuki or Hideki Matsui-shaped success story, there are plenty of highly touted prospects who flame out.
And the challenge facing Ohtani was even greater, as he tried to make it as a two-way player – a hitter and a pitcher. For context, there are currently no other two-way players in MLB and you have to go back to the first half of the 20th century to find anyone doing it particularly successfully. Either pitching or hitting at the major league level is unbelievably hard but to do both...?
And Ohtani didn’t just do both, he immediately excelled.
He won American League (AL) Rookie of the Year honours with the Angels in 2018 and after injury blighted his 2019 and 2020 campaigns somewhat, 2021 saw him ascend to truly elite status and become the best player in baseball. He made history by dominating with bat and ball, being unanimously voted as AL MVP, and The Sporting News ranked his campaign as the greatest season of all time, in any sport.
He was AL MVP runner-up in 2022 after another blistering season before being unanimously voted to win the award for a second time following the 2023 campaign. However, despite his individual brilliance, the fact he played for the largely hapless Angels ensured that incredibly, he had never reached the play-offs.
So last winter, Ohtani took advantage of being perhaps the most sought-after free agent in baseball history and made the short hop across Los Angeles to join the Dodgers. He signed a 10-year, $700m (£527m) deal – the largest contract in American sports history for baseball’s most unique player.
It was a match made in heaven, with the face of the sport joining one of its most illustrious and richest franchises in a huge media market, where the eyes of the country would always be on him. But scandal was just around the corner.
In March 2024, a remarkable story emerged that shocked the world, as Ohtani’s long-time interpreter Ippei Mizuhara was arrested for being caught up in an illegal gambling ring. Mizuhara would go on to plead guilty to bank and tax fraud after allegedly stealing nearly $17m from baseball’s biggest superstar to pay off his own illegal gambling debts.
Federal investigators say Mizuhara made about 19,000 wagers between September 2021 and January 2024. Mizuhara’s winnings totalled over $142m, which he deposited in his own bank account and not Ohtani’s, but his losing bets were around $183m – a net loss of nearly $41m.
Investigators did not find any evidence Mizuhara had bet on baseball and prosecutors confirmed there was no evidence Ohtani was involved in or aware of Mizuhara’s gambling. Ohtani was considered a victim and cooperated fully with investigators.
The revelations coincided with the start of the 2024 MLB season, Ohtani’s first as a Dodger, but they had seemingly no impact on his baseball performance. Although he hasn’t pitched this year due to recovery from elbow surgery, he has reached historic levels at the plate.
The 30-year-old entered the 50-50 club as he became the first player in MLB history to hit 50 home runs and steal 50 bases in a single season when, in a 19 September game against the Miami Marlins, he racked up six hits from six at-bats – a single, two doubles, and three home runs – and stole two bases. It was one of the greatest single-game performances in sporting history and got him past the threshold for a unique accomplishment in MLB’s 150-year history. He ended the regular season having played 159 games, with a .310 batting average and a league-leading 54 home runs, while stealing 59 bases.
After helping the Dodgers win the National League West with a record of 98-64, Ohtani finally has the chance to show what he can do in the play-offs. He gave a tantalising taste of things to come when, in his very first postseason game against the San Diego Padres, he belted a home run in just his second at-bat.
The Dodgers ultimately battled to a tense 3-2 NL Divisional Series victory over the Padres and now lead the New York Mets 2-1 in the best-of-seven Championship Series after an 8-0 win in Game 3 on Wednesday evening. The winners will advance to the World Series, where the New York Yankees or Cleveland Guardians await.
Ohtani has actually struggled at the plate since that homer in Game 1 against the Padres. He was on a run of just five hits in his next 28 at-bats, with all of those five hits being singles. He wasn’t putting the ball in play or hitting for power.
But in the eighth inning in Queens, the Japanese phenom blasted a monumental home run into the upper deck of the stands at Citi Field as the Dodgers jumped from a 4-0 lead to 7-0 ahead with one swing of the bat. They’re just two wins away from a World Series appearance and a shot at just a second title since 1988. Even the one they won in that time was during the Covid-shortened 2020 season, with just 60 regular-season games as opposed to the normal 162. Dodgers fans have been waiting for a long time...
Baseball’s biggest, most unique star is tantalisingly close to ending that drought and the celebrations would be felt on both sides of the globe.
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