Shohei Ohtani 'Absolutely' Knew His Interpreter was Betting on Baseball, According Noted Betting-on-Your-Own-Games Expert Tim Donaghy

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Wherever you come down on the issue of the scandal that Shohei Ohtani was at the very least adjacent to, there's one thing we all know to a moral certainty. And it is that Major League Baseball dodged a major - perhaps even lethal - bullet on this one. If the sports' brightest star, making the most money, playing in as big a media market as MLB has, had been directly linked to a major gambling scandal just as pro sports is beginning to rake in the limitless revenue streams from sports wagering, baseball may have never recovered. 

And whether you believe Ohtani is a victim of his own interpreter's irresponsibility or he was in on it and Ippei Mizuhara is nothing a fall guy, we can all agree that baseball is better with him in it. And that he's been playing like he wasn't the least bit effected by the F5 tornado that blew around him for a few days last month. As we speak, Ohtani is leading the Majors in hits, batting average, slugging, and on-base plus slugging. And is at or near the top in virtually every other offensive category. For a Dodgers team that's 7.5 games ahead in the NL West, no less. So right now everyone's benefiting from the fact that he avoided the stench of a potentially career-ending PR disaster. 

But there's one guy who claims to have some insight into what really went down. And he ought to know, since he himself is a convicted felon who did time for fixing NBA games:

Fox - [D]isgraced former NBA referee Tim Donaghy, who went to prison after admitting he bet on games he officiated in many seasons in the early 2000s, isn’t buying that Ohtani had no clue about Mizuhara’s gambling addiction.

Donaghy made an appearance on OutKick’s "Hot Mic," when he was asked if there’s any way Ohtani didn’t know. 

"Heck no," he responded. "I think Major League Baseball was smart to sweep this under the rug as quickly as possible. You look at that guy and what he’s done for baseball globally and the fans he’s attracted around the world, the last thing they want is for him to be somebody who’s involved in betting on his own games and maybe doing things that he wasn’t supposed to do. 

"I think they were very smart to get that under the rug as quickly as possible and say that he had nothing to do with it, and basically have this other guy take the fall for everything."

Donaghy also doesn’t believe Mizuhara never bet on baseball, considering investigators found he placed about 19,000 bets between December 2021 and January 2024, which comes out to about 25 per day. 

Mizuhara bet an average $12,800 per bet, with ranges between $10 and $160,000. 

"I think absolutely," Donaghy said when asked if he believed Mizuhara bet on baseball. "When you look at the amount of bets he was placing, obviously he had some type of addiction. It’s not like he could just turn it off when he had baseball seasons. There’s no doubt in my mind that he not only bet on baseball, he bet on Ohtani’s game, and I think Ohtani was right there with him knowing what he was doing."

I think can safely speak for most people when I say I hope Donaghy is wrong. Ohtani is the face of the sport right now in an era where MLB has been gawdawful at marketing their star players. Baseball needs him to succeed, not go down in flames like Pete Rose and most of the superstars who made the Steroid Era so much fun. 

However, who would know better than Donaghy how to keep a lid on a major scandal and limit the damage? Never forget the brilliant job the NBA did passing him off as a "rogue" official. A lone wolf who went all Broken Arrow without anyone's knowledge and with no one else involved. And improbably, managed to jingle their keys enough to distract the world from the mother lode of texts and 10-second phone calls Donaghy was making to other refs minutes before and immediately after the games he was affecting. None of those other officials every got charged, never mind convicted. And several of them are wearing whistles in these playoffs. So if anyone would understand how these things work, it's this guy.

To be sure, Donaghy is a dirtbag who defrauded the public and a serial liar. But sometimes you need a dirtbag to expose the dirtbags because they understand how the dirtbag business works. Think Henry Hill after he left witness protection and used to go on Howard Stern once a month to talk shit about the Mob. 

To be crystal clear, this is not me suggesting Ohtani is guilty. I'm just acknowledging that an expert on how you can broom evidence of a major scandal in order to pin it all on one guy is saying Ohtani knew everything. But this is likely the last we'll ever hear on the subject. Because like the NBA before them - not to mention the Astros sign stealing and the Cardinals hacking into other teams' scouting reports - MLB will have zero interest in pursuing this any further. It was all a wild ride while it lasted.