Shohei Ohtani, the baseball superstar under pressure

The Japanese player has upended the sport but a new scandal could land both in trouble

by Leo Lewis and Sara Germano
April 15, 2024

Since March 19, the entire length of Tokyo’s elegant Omotesando shopping street has been dominated by pictures of Shohei Ohtani: the preternaturally talented star of the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team, holder of the most lucrative contract in the history of sport and, now, the unblemished face of Kose Decorté liposome advanced repair skin serum.

On the other side of the world, somewhere between the murky realm of online sports betting, suspect bank transfers, confessions of gambling addiction, double investigations and a now vanished confidant accused of “massive theft” from the 29-year-old Ohtani himself, the picture is rather more pockmarked.

At the centre of the mystery is Ippei Mizuhara. The Japanese national, who has spent much of his life in the US, acted as Ohtani’s interpreter for many years. Before being summarily fired by the Dodgers and disappearing entirely from public view a week ago, Mizuhara told ESPN that he had amassed large gambling debts — $4.5mn — that his great friend Ohtani had paid on his behalf. Mizuhara did not respond to a request for comment.

Just as it was dawning on everyone how huge a problem that might be for the baseball star (gambling is illegal in California), Mizuhara said that Ohtani had never known about the transfer. In a later press conference, Ohtani directly accused Mizuhara of stealing money from him and said that he had no idea about the theft until his friend confessed last week.

The unknowns of the situation still heavily outweigh the knowns but the frenzied speculation on both sides of the Pacific could plausibly land both Ohtani and American baseball in trouble. In question is his role as the face of Major League Baseball (MLB) — the sport for which he has been the all-conquering, record-breaking megastar that America’s national game so badly needed in the fight for eyeballs against social media, games and streaming services.

Ohtani was born on July 5, 1994 in Oshu, Japan, to two athletic parents. His father played baseball for a local semi-professional club, and his mother was competitive in badminton. He came of age during a formative period for Japanese ballplayers in North America, the golden years for Ichiro Suzuki and Hideki Matsui in MLB.

After participating in Japan’s prestigious national high school baseball championship, Ohtani found early success in the domestic Pacific League. Within four years, he joined the Los Angeles Angels in 2018, where he transformed the US game. His ultra-rare twin prowess at both pitching and hitting forced the league to change the rules around how team line-ups are set. Baseball pundits have declared Ohtani the greatest in the modern game; comparing him with the epic, sport-changing stature of Babe Ruth.

Last year, Ohtani struck a $700mn deal with the LA Dodgers — an unprecedentedly enormous, 10-year contract which successfully prised him from the Los Angeles Angels but on which, unusually, payment will be almost completely deferred until 2034.

“There’s a lot more energy around the park, from a media and fan perspective”, Andrew Friedman, president of baseball operations for the Dodgers, said before Ohtani had even stepped to the plate for the first time in Dodger blue. “What we have seen to this point has far exceeded any expectations that we could have had this early on, with the banter and the way these guys have come together”.

At the season’s formal Opening Day this Thursday, Ohtani sprinted for a would-be triple only to realise his teammate was still on third base suggesting team communication has some way to go. Prior to this, he had signed endorsement deals, which will earn him $65mn this year; the game’s next biggest star managed just $7mn. During his 11 years of professional baseball, he has done adverts, endorsements and sponsorship deals with a global roster of companies stretching from Porsche, Hugo Boss and Oakley to Salesforce, MUFG Bank and Japan Airlines.

Crucial to all this has been his reputation as a man so devoted to perfecting his craft that he is almost boringly clean. Last month, Ohtani announced to widespread surprise that he had quietly married an ex basketball player he described, in keeping with his unflashy image, as a “normal Japanese woman”.

It is precisely the scale and cleanliness of the Ohtani edifice that has made recent ructions so unsettling. If his account is to be believed, the ultimate conclusion may be that both he and the wider world have been victims of a masterful conman in Mizuhara but the outstanding questions are pressing.

How, exactly, was the money stolen and had Ohtani ceded control of his own accounts to Mizuhara? If Ohtani has indeed just discovered that he was being lied to by his friend, is he probing any other part of his professional relationship with him? Was Mizuhara the main conduit during Ohtani’s contract negotiations and if so might he have dictated terms around that $700mn deferred salary deal that were not Ohtani’s idea?

The slogan of Ohtani’s skincare campaign makes it clear that this is about more than his moisturised complexion. “Just like Ohtani, who goes above and beyond his own accomplishments, Kosme Decorté’s efforts to create the ultimate in beauty are unending.” The biggest question for baseball is what it will do if it discovers that the reputation of its biggest star is only skin deep.