ANNOUNCER: Hello. Welcome the 2024 World Series Champion Los Angeles Dodgers.

 

TISHA THOMPSON: It’s November 2024 and the Los Angeles Dodgers are in their home stadium celebrating their World Series win. The players line up on the podium. Team manager Dave Roberts takes the mic and introduces some of the stars.

 

DAVE ROBERTS: Let’s hear it. Freddie, Freddie, Freddie, Freddie.

 

TISHA THOMPSON: And then he calls out the name everyone’s waiting for.

 

DAVE ROBERTS: Who wants to hear from Shohei Ohtani?

 

TISHA THOMPSON: Shohei Ohtani just finished his first season with the Dodgers. He’s a head taller than a lot of his teammates, and he’s wearing a t-shirt and backwards ball cap when he gives a shy grin as he takes the mic.

 

SHOHEI OHTANI: This is so special (UNINTEL).

 

TISHA THOMPSON: This is one of the first times that Shohei has spoken publicly in English without an interpreter.

 

SHOHEI OHTANI: I’m so honored to be here and to be part of this team. Congratulations Los Angeles. Thank you, friends.

 

TISHA THOMPSON: That’s all he says, and the crowd absolutely loves it. By any measure Shohei’s first season with the Dodgers was extraordinary.

 

PLAY-BY-PLAY: Here’s the two-one. There’s a drive, it’s a bullet. Shohei Ohtani arrives in October with a three-run home run. Ohtani sends one in the air. Back it goes, gone. One-of-a-kind player, one-of-a-kind season. Shohei Ohtani starts the 50/50 club.

 

TISHA THOMPSON: Many believe he could become the best baseball player of all time.

 

MALE VOICE: It’s really not hyperbole, guys, to say that Shohei Ohtani is the new Babe Ruth.

 

PLAY-BY-PLAY: Ohtani, right field, forget about it. A massive shot, wow.

 

TISHA THOMPSON: It’s the kind of success that helps overshadow what happened just months before at the start of the season, when Shohei was caught up in a scandal that could’ve ended it all.

 

MALE REPORTER: And we’re gonna turn to the scandal rocking Major League Baseball. Shohei Ohtani is set to address the media today.

 

MALE VOICE: The scandal has the potential to be one of the biggest sports scandals we’ve ever seen, certainly one of the biggest baseball scandals that we’ve ever seen.

 

TISHA THOMPSON: Our team at ESPN broke the story. It tied the money of one of the highest paid players in baseball history to a vast illegal sports betting operation. But when it was over, he would walk away, and someone else, someone close to him, would confess to a shocking crime, disappearing in disgrace.

 

DAVE ROBERTS: Shohei Ohtani.

 

TISHA THOMPSON: And in this moment, at the World Series celebration, you could almost forget it ever happened.

 

SHOHEI OHTANI: Thank you friends.

 

TISHA THOMPSON: But two years later, I still have so many questions. So I’m going to travel the country, chase down leads, and try to understand how one of sports most complicated friendships detonated into one of the biggest scandals in baseball history.

 

PLAY-BY-PLAY: Here’s the pitch to Ohtani. Shohei Ohtani.

 

FEMALE VOICE: Obviously the greatest player that has ever played the game.

 

MALE VOICE: Generational talent.

 

MALE VOICE: Federal investigation.

 

MALE VOICE: Questions about wire transfers, $4.5 million worth.

 

MALE VOICE: Southern California bookmaker.

 

MALE VOICE: And he has no idea of it.

 

TISHA THOMPSON: I’m ESPN investigative reporter Tisha Thompson. From 30 for 30 Podcasts, this is The Betrayal of Shohei Ohtani Episode One: The Letter O. I started working on this story a year before Shohei won that World Series, when a source sent me a tip.

 

TISHA THOMPSON: At first the tip seemed to have nothing to do with baseball or any sport. It was information from a federal court document still under seal, a list of items that had been seized from a house in California. It included the kinds of things you might expect from a federal raid, computers, hard drives, and cell phones.

 

TISHA THOMPSON: But there were also $40,000 Breitling watches, handbags from Chanel, Hermes, Louis Vuitton, and casino chips. Lots and lots of casino chips. Why were the feds interested in it? Because all of these things were taken from a house owned by a man named Matt Bowyer.

 

TISHA THOMPSON: The feds also seized a cash counting machine, sports betting records, and receipts for offshore bank wires. And that’s when I say to myself, “I think Matt Bowyer is a bookie,” a person who takes bets, pays them out when they win, and collects when they lose.

 

TISHA THOMPSON: My source confirms it. Matt Bowyer is a bookie, but he isn’t just any bookie. According to my source, his clients include celebrities, millionaires, and seemingly one of the most famous athletes in the world. When my source tells me the name of that athlete, it’s a name so big, so shocking, that all I write down is the letter O.

 

ELAINE TENG: You tell me the name of the athlete involved, and that the feds are involved in an investigation, and that is why we have to be so careful.

 

TISHA THOMPSON: This is my editor, Elaine Teng.

 

ELAINE TENG: We were really worried about putting a rumor out there that then comes back to us as fact. We have to be really careful about going out and saying, like, “Hey, like, do you think– is Shohei Ohtani gambling with– a bookie?”

 

TISHA THOMPSON: This tip was so potentially damning we needed to read really carefully, because it could turn into a very grown-up version of that kid’s game, telephone, where someone whispers something to someone, and then they whisper it to someone else, and by the time it comes back to you it’s totally different from what you said.

 

TISHA THOMPSON: I couldn’t just ask sources questions like, “Hey, does Shohei gamble?” Even if the answer was no, they might tell someone else in the clubhouse that ESPN was asking if Shohei gambled. And then that person says to someone else, “Hey, I heard Shohei gambles.” By the time I call several someones later, that person then says to me, “Oh yeah, I have heard he gambles.” All I have done is confirm a rumor that I started, a rumor about Shohei Ohtani paying millions of dollars to an illegal bookie.

 

ELAINE TENG: I think it was the amount of money involved as well as the caliber of the athlete that feels really loaded and, you know, extremely damaging if true, right, to the athlete, their reputation, their career.

 

TISHA THOMPSON: It’s a very serious allegation. I wanna learn everything I can about what someone could get themselves into betting with a bookie. So I head to the sports betting epicenter of the country. We are in Las Vegas, baby. I’m in Las Vegas to meet with the reporter I think knows more about bookies and sports betting than anyone else in the business.

 

DAVID PURDUM: What do you think the biggest moneymaker is for the– casino?

 

TISHA THOMPSON: Penny slots.

 

DAVID PURDUM: That is correct. That is correct.

 

TISHA THOMPSON: This is ESPN’s David Purdum. I met him in a casino just off the Vegas Strip. We sit down in a room near the sports book, watching as people place bets. Do they put the sports book in the back on purpose?

 

DAVID PURDUM: Yes, to make you walk through all the– slot machines.

 

TISHA THOMPSON: I wanted to talk to Purdum about the tip I received, because he has a massive Rolodex of sources in the sports betting world. Had you ever heard of Matt Bowyer before–

 

DAVID PURDUM: No, I had not. Never heard of him.

 

TISHA THOMPSON: We gave you Matt Bowyer’s name and you called sources.

 

DAVID PURDUM: Uh-huh (AFFIRM).

 

TISHA THOMPSON: You do the David Purdum magic and disappear for 12 hours, and came back with info.

 

DAVID PURDUM: Right. I usually go to– you start with your guys that you know have had this, and when they didn’t know I had to expand. And– I did, and found some people that knew of him. And then when we found out that he was coming to Vegas I talked to people here– and they knew of him.

 

TISHA THOMPSON: A source warned Purdum that Bowyer was connected to a man with a dangerous reputation, a guy named Owen Hanson, a former USC football player who became known as the Cocaine QB. When I got the original tip Hanson was in prison for bookmaking and drug trafficking, and was rumored to have ties to the cartel.

 

DAVID PURDUM: We had a source who was involved with running money for that group. And he was telling us, “Be careful,” right? Because– Owen Hanson was not known as– a good person. He was known as a violent person– around the betting community. And when– there was ties to– to Bowyer– there was concern.

 

TISHA THOMPSON: Over the next few weeks we gathered more sources and confirmed Bowyer was running a huge sports book operation in Southern California. Is California more prolific with bookies than the other–

 

DAVID PURDUM: Yes.

 

TISHA THOMPSON: –parts of the world?

 

DAVID PURDUM: Massive, massive bookmaking operations in California.

 

TISHA THOMPSON: Why?

 

DAVID PURDUM: Because there’s no legal sports betting.

 

TISHA THOMPSON: Sports betting is now legal in 39 states, plus Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico. Depending on where you live, you can place bets through a state-licensed app, a website, or in a casino or a bar in those states. But unless you’re betting on a horse race, sports betting in California is illegal.

 

TISHA THOMPSON: There is no legal way to place a sports bet there. Not on Draft Kings, not on FanDuel, not in the tribal casinos. So if you live in California and you want to bet on sports, you either have to go somewhere like Vegas or find a bookie, which is, of course, illegal. But there are many reasons why someone might wanna use a bookie, even if the state they live in has legal sports betting. Purdum says a big reason is credit.

 

DAVID PURDUM: People wanna bet on credit. You don’t wanna give over your cash. If you can bet on credit, huge advantage. I can just place my bet for $100, my money never changes hands, you go down $1,000, the guy says, “Okay, let’s meet up at the Waffle House.” And you go there and you pass over an envelope and that’s how it’s done.

 

TISHA THOMPSON: Another reason someone might seek out a bookie is anonymity.

 

DAVID PURDUM: If you are an athlete betting with Draft Kings, there’s a chance that we could find it. But if you can be betting with this illegal sports book over here, I would not be able to know it.

 

TISHA THOMPSON: So Purdum says a celebrity who wants to bet discreetly might use a bookie. When I told him that Shohei Ohtani was the athlete my source told me might be involved with Matt Bowyer?

 

DAVID PURDUM: I was stunned. I remember when– you relayed the message to who the athlete was, I was like, “Oh my gosh.” I believe I cursed.

 

TISHA THOMPSON: Why is sports betting such a sensitive topic for Major League Baseball?

 

DAVID PURDUM: Well, you start with the Black Sox, way back– at the beginning of the century– the Chicago White Sox– several players of them got– engaged with some criminals, and they allegedly agreed to throw a World Series.

 

TISHA THOMPSON: Major League Baseball banned eight players from the Chicago White Sox for life. And after that scandal the league created a set of rules about betting on sports. It forbids players, coaches, and staff from using a bookie, and you may never bet on baseball.

 

DAVID PURDUM: And so that was the big one. The next time you get some sort of– betting scandal is Pete Rose.

 

PLAY-BY-PLAY: Number 4,192 makes Pete Rose the all-time Major League Baseball hit leader. And (UNINTEL)–

 

DAVID PURDUM: All-time hits leader. He eventually admitted to betting on the game of baseball.

 

PETE ROSE: I was wrong and just stupid. Worst thing I ever did in my life.

 

TISHA THOMPSON: In 1989, MLB punished Pete Rose with a lifetime ban for betting on baseball. Pete Rose was one of the greatest ballplayers of his generation. He holds records that have never been broken. But all of his feats on the field have been overshadowed by what he did off the field. Could Shohei Ohtani, the greatest player of his generation, be the next Pete Rose?

 

DAVID PURDUM: If they were to have found out that he was betting on baseball he would’ve been banned for life. And this is your biggest star, banned for life.

 

TISHA THOMPSON: Part of what made the allegation so shocking was how Shohei Ohtani had a reputation for being squeaky clean. Before this there’s never been a whisper of a scandal attached to his name, which makes it all the more surprising to hear allegations that he might be tied to a bookie with dangerous connections. But we realized we don’t actually know all that much about Shohei’s life outside of baseball.

 

TIM KEOWN: He is the most guarded and protected athlete that I think I’ve ever been around.

 

TISHA THOMPSON: This is ESPN’s Tim Keown. Tim specializes in writing profiles of the most famous and oftentimes controversial names in sports. People like Barry Bonds, Aaron Rodgers, Floyd Mayweather Jr. Tim says he’s been trying to decipher the enigma that is Shohei Ohtani ever since he first arrived here in the United States.

 

TIM KEOWN: When he came here, I first started observing him, knowing that I was gonna have to observe him to write about him rather than talk to him, because it was established early on that– it was a dead end. He will only take questions about the game, and– and very few, three, maybe four in each language. And these are in, like, bit questions. I wanna know, like, “You just threw 117 pitches, are you– what do you feel today?” And he would not– he just doesn’t entertain those. He’s just not built that way.

 

TISHA THOMPSON: Tim says most of what you know about Shohei is limited to what Shohei is willing to tell you. And it rarely leaves the realm of the ballpark. And when it does, it’s on Shohei’s terms. Like when he got married. People didn’t even know Shohei was in a relationship until he posted about his wife on Instagram.

 

FEMALE VOICE: He has lots of titles, MVP, gazillionaire, superstar, but husband had eluded him until now. And he made the announcement where else but on social media, that reads, “Not only have I begun a new chapter in my career with the Dodgers, but I also have begun a new life with someone from my native country of Japan who is very special to me, and I wanted everyone to know I am now married.”

 

TISHA THOMPSON: Shohei’s teammates, and even Dodgers manager Dave Roberts, didn’t know about it.

 

(Foreign Language Not Transcribed)

 

TRANSLATOR: I felt like it was a good timing because it was before the season. I didn’t want really any distractions once the season started.

 

TIM KEOWN: I think there is this– the sort of the aura, right? Like, just leave him alone to do what he does, because the distractions are not something he’s interested in. He’s not interested in– in talking to me, to be honest. He does it as an obligation after he pitches. If he hits two home runs in a game he’ll stand there and answer questions in the most anodyne way possible. Are you nervous at all, playing in the post-season for the first time?

 

(Foreign Language Not Transcribed)

 

TRANSLATOR: No. (LAUGHTER)

 

TISHA THOMPSON: The but league, the teams, and the fans don’t seem to mind not knowing much about Shohei’s life off the field, because what’s happening on the field is record breaking.

 

PLAY-BY-PLAY: Another strikeout.

 

TIM KEOWN: He’s really challenged our idea of limits, because he has shown his talent to be limitless. He does the two things that excite baseball people more than anything else.

 

PLAY-BY-PLAY: Ohtani, Dias (PH). That’s a called strike three.

 

TIM KEOWN: He can throw a baseball over 100 miles an hour, and he– he can hit a ball 500 feet.

 

PLAY-BY-PLAY: Up and over the roof.

 

TIM KEOWN: It’s, like, the two headline acts of baseball. He is among the best in the world at both, if not the best.

 

PLAY-BY-PLAY: (UNINTEL) so there goes Ohtani, it’s a lead-off home run after he struck out three in the top of the first.

 

TIM KEOWN: He is a dream for Major League Baseball.

 

TISHA THOMPSON: And the Dodgers rewarded him in the fall of 2023 with a record-breaking contract.

 

FEMALE VOICE: It is the announcement that took the baseball world by storm today.

 

MALE VOICE: $700 million–

 

MALE VOICE: Sounds good to me–

 

MALE VOICE: –over ten years.

 

MALE VOICE: Oh my goodness. Come on.

 

TISHA THOMPSON: One of the league’s premier franchises made a historic bet on Shohei, because they knew his success would be their success. They stood to make a lot of money too. Ticket sales, merchandise, partnerships. Shohei’s success could pay off big-time for the Dodgers and MLB. Shohei himself makes more than $125 million in endorsements a year, with much of that money coming from advertisements in Japan.

 

TIM KEOWN: When I was there, I was shocked by you could literally not walk more that two blocks in Tokyo without seeing his face on something. Whether it was a green tea or a water, sports drink, or Hugo Boss, or something. I mean, everywhere is Ohtani.

 

FEMALE VOICE: After touching down in Tokyo, it’s easy to see Ohtani mania is really a thing–

 

VOICES: Dodgers, Dodgers, Dodgers, Dodgers, Dodgers, Dodgers–

 

FEMALE VOICE: Everyone in Japan is by default a Shohei fan. (CHEERING)

 

VOICES: Dodgers, Dodgers, Dodgers, Dodgers.

 

TIM KEOWN: The appetite for Ohtani, the love for Ohtani appears to be as limitless as his talent.

 

TISHA THOMPSON: If Shohei’s reputation takes a hit, it wouldn’t just tarnish his name, it would have devastating consequences for the Dodgers, for Major League Baseball, and for Japan. You were first told that Ohtani might be involved in some kind of betting scandal. What was your initial reaction?

 

TIM KEOWN: Shock, shock combined with sort of a reassessment of everything I had seen leading up to that. Plus another layer of, like, who knows.

 

TISHA THOMPSON: Been investigating this tip for two months when in January 2024 a source tells me to look at a different player who may be a critical link. David Fletcher was an infielder for the Los Angeles Angels. He and Shohei played together for six seasons. And Tim tells me it was widely known that they were friends.

 

TIM KEOWN: They played bumper pool together, and they played Clash of Clans, and it was just this sort of, you know, buddy comedy, this little, white guy and this big, Japanese guy buddying around.

 

TISHA THOMPSON: Fletcher’s social media shows he is an avid poker player.

 

TIM KEOWN: I don’t think he broadcast it, but I don’t think he hid it.

 

TISHA THOMPSON: And his love of poker would end up being vital to our investigation. When I call him in January, Fletcher admits to me he knows Matt Bowyer. They had golfed together. But he wouldn’t call them friends. Fletcher tells me he heard that Bowyer might be a bookie.

 

TISHA THOMPSON: But he insists he’s never bet with Bowyer. Worried about spreading a rumor, I don’t ask if Bowyer is Shohei’s bookie. I don’t ask anything about Shohei. By this point I’ve developed more sources, and I learn there is a paper trail that connects Shohei Ohtani to Matt Bowyer.

 

TISHA THOMPSON: And I’ve tracked down a source who has that proof. But they’re nervous, and it takes weeks before the source agrees to show it to me. And they’re not gonna make it easy. It’s the middle of the night. I’m driving to meet my contact. I find them standing outside of a car in a parking lot, waiting for me.

 

TISHA THOMPSON: I drop into the passenger seat. The contact hands me a cell phone and tells me the proof I want will appear on an encrypted app, and each image will disappear in 30 seconds. I can’t take pictures, but I can take notes. I pull out my notebook and I tell my contact I’m ready.

 

TISHA THOMPSON: A document appears on the screen, September 14th, 2023, $500,000. I spot the word “loan” and scribble it down in my notebook, but I don’t have time to ask questions because the second document appears. October 2nd, 2023, $500,000. Both documents include the same long list of numbers on the screen.

 

TISHA THOMPSON: Later, after I drive away, I will stare at the jumble of letters and numbers I scribbled into my notebook, and I’ll realize it’s routing information. I just saw wire transfers from a bank account at Bank of America, and there’s a name attached to the account: Shohei Ohtani.

 

TISHA THOMPSON: According to the screenshots I just saw, Shohei Ohtani’s bank account sent wire transfers to Matt Bowyer’s illegal bookmaking operation. I saw two of them totaling $1 million. I’ve got it, the direct link between Shohei and the bookie’s operation. But before I can even begin to wrap my head around what I’ve seen, a source reaches out with new information and a new name.

 

ANNOUNCER: Interpreter Ippei Mizuhara.

 

TISHA THOMPSON: Ippei Mizuhara, Shohei’s interpreter for the past six years. The source tells me Ippei is prepared to say he was the one gambling, and that Shohei was paying his debts. If there’s someone we know even less about than Shohei Ohtani it’s Ippei Mizuhara, Shohei’s interpreter.

 

TISHA THOMPSON: His biography, provided by the Los Angeles Angels, says Ippei was born in Japan but grew up in Southern California. Before he joined the Angels, Ippei worked in Japan for the Nippon-Ham Fighters baseball team as an interpreter for American players. And that’s where he met Shohei. And when Shohei signed with the Angels in December of 2017, he brought Ippei along with him as his interpreter.

 

IPPEI MIZUHARA: I wanna talk about w– why I joined the Angels, but I want you guys to w– see me. I’m trying to adjust with the team throughout this spring training, and m– I think this will be– find out why I joined the Angels, that it was the right choice.

 

TISHA THOMPSON: Ever since they arrived in the states, Shohei and Ippei are always together, with Ippei seemingly just a few steps behind Shohei at all times. And Ippei does a lot more than just translate. Ippei carries Shohei’s gear. When Shohei needs a ride, Ippei drives him. When Shohei warms up for a game, he doesn’t use a pitching coach, he throws to Ippei. When Shohei competed in the 2021 MLB Home Run Derby, he chose Ippei to be his catcher.

 

PLAY-BY-PLAY: What a fun moment that’s gonna be for him.

 

PLAY-BY-PLAY: And hopefully he’s not having to catch too much, (LAUGH) ’cause hopefully they’ll–

 

TISHA THOMPSON: They walked red carpets together. Teammates and others have even wondered if the two men live together. But they’ve never confirmed it.

 

MALE REPORTER: Your day in the life with– with Shohei, I mean, what do you guys do throughout the day before you even get here to the ballpark?

 

IPPEI MIZUHARA: We’ll eat breakfast every day at the hotel if we’re on the road. If not, at home. Then that’s pretty much it. (LAUGH)

 

TIM KEOWN: It got to the point where, you know, I wondered how could you spend that much time with one person?

 

TISHA THOMPSON: When my colleague, Tim Keown, began to watch Shohei and Ippei off the field, it was clear to him that Ippei was different from other interpreters.

 

TIM KEOWN: To call him an interpreter is almost laughable, because that was almost the least– important part of his job. And the– the routine was always the same, where Shohei would walk out onto the field and Ippei was, like, two-and-a-half to three steps behind. It was like– it almost felt like a choreographed thing, the way f– they went about it. The only tie that Shohei seemed to be by himself, at least at the baseball field, was when he was in the batter’s box or on the mound.

 

TISHA THOMPSON: They appeared to be extremely close.

 

TIM KEOWN: There was no Ippei without Shohei. It manifested itself in me by, like, going to players and saying, “Does it ever occur to you that these guys get sick of each other?”

 

TISHA THOMPSON: A source told me they thought Ippei might be taking the fall for Shohei, but I didn’t know what to think.

 

TIM KEOWN: The walls were so thick and so impenetrable that, I mean, anything seemed possible, right?

 

ELAINE TENG: We didn’t quite know what to make of the Ippei connection.

 

TISHA THOMPSON: My editor, Elaine, and I spent weeks investigating the possibilities.

 

ELAINE TENG: Whether it was him himself, whether he was a cover for Ohtani, whether he was making the bets on Ohtani’s behalf. We didn’t know if it was a cover up. We didn’t know the truth.

 

TISHA THOMPSON: There are two people who we thought would know the truth, Shohei Ohtani and Ippei Mizuhara. By March 2024, I’ve been working on this for five months. And we’ve collected enough information to go to Shohei’s agent. In an email I tell him, “I have sources who have told us about Shohei Ohtani’s involvement with Matt Bowyer.”

 

TISHA THOMPSON: I purposefully don’t tell him that I know Matt Bowyer is a bookie, or that I’ve heard Ippei’s name. I wanna see what their response will be. Two hours later I get a call from a publicist named Matt Hiltzik. He tells me he specializes in what’s called crisis communication, and Shohei’s agent has just brought him on to represent Shohei.

 

TISHA THOMPSON: Some of Hiltzik’s clients have included Hillary Clinton and Ivanka Trump, Brad Pitt, Alec Baldwin, and Johnny Depp. When I tell him about the wire transfers that I saw, Hiltzik says he needs to call me back. I wait. I wonder. Will they try to deny it?

 

TISHA THOMPSON: Will they threaten us with defamation? Or will they admit it? Phone rings again a few hours later. Hiltzik says, “You’re gonna get a really good fucking story. You’re gonna get the truth about what happened.” And then he confirms it. It’s true.

 

TISHA THOMPSON: Shohei’s bank account wired millions of dollars to Bowyer’s operation. But he tells me someone else did the bets. Shohei was covering for someone else, he says, someone important to his life. I tell him, “I have sources that tell me it’s Ippei.” He says, “You have good sources.” I tell him, “I want to interview Shohei Ohtani.” He says, “Maybe. I have to see. But I can give you someone else.”

 

IPPEI MIZUHARA: I’m Ippei Mizuhara, and you do have permission to record me.