It’s difficult to outgrow a scandal when the world doesn’t want to move on from it. That has become even more common in the modern post-internet world and Shohei Ohtani too is now a victim of it. Despite his extraordinary performances since joining the Los Angeles Dodgers, fans can’t help but continue to joke about his interpreter Ippei Mizuhara’s gambling scandal. But even after being cleared by Federal investigators, at least a few members of the baseball community still smell something fishy in Ohtani’s story.

Surprisingly this time, an MLB legend has shared his skepticism on the entire story. The 2x World Champion and Atlanta Braves legend David Justice recently came onto the All Facts No Brakes show. While reminiscing about his legendary baseball career, Justice talked about all the recent developments in the game. However, when asked about Ippei Mizuhara’s scandal he noted that the mismatched initial stories.

“The very first interview the interpreter literally said ‘Ohtani covered my bet’,” Justice said about Mizuhara’s first interview. “But then all of a sudden when they took it upstairs and people said ‘whoa whoa hold on you can’t say that!’ all of a sudden the narrative changed,” he added. Later, the 3x All-Star shared what he felt might have actually happened in the case.

“This dude is making tons of bets, money after money. Ain’t no time do you see any stress on his face? No time ya’ll sitting at lunch and he goes ‘Man listen, boy, I’m deep in. I owe a million dollars’ part?” Justice asked. “Part of me can see Ohtani saying ‘Here man, just take this 4 and a half pay that debt all right’, cause Ohtani’s making a bank,” he claimed.  

Justice noted that Shohei Ohtani could’ve done that because Mizuhara wasn’t betting on baseball. The interpreter was allegedly betting on European Soccer, so it wouldn’t be wrong in Ohtani’s mind. But then there’s a slight issue in this story – it’s that the two-way phenom has already denied these claims.

Shohei Ohtani’s denial sends mixed signals about legend’s hypothesis

During his press conference on March 25, Ohtani declared that he did not know about Mizuhara’s gambling problems. The two-way phenom continuously reiterated the fact that he came to know about it at the same time as everyone else. As a result, the superstar called Ippei Mizuhara “a liar” and announced that he had been a victim of theft. 

Yes, it’s true that Mizuhara claimed that Ohtani paid off his debts in his initial interview. But then Ohtani’s denial made things murkier for everyone involved. However, the Federal investigators’ complaint report did clear a few of these doubts. The report indicated that Ohtani and Mizuhara had never talked about betting in thousands of texts. More importantly, they painted Shotime as a victim of “theft” which was seen as giving a clean chit to Ohtani.

Still, it seems at least a few people are cynical about this whole thing. One can’t blame them, after all, betting and gambling are serious issues. We’ve seen how they tarnished Pete Rose’s legacy, one wouldn’t want the same to happen to Shohei Ohtani.