Major League Baseball announced last week that it has officially launched an investigation into the situation involving Dodgers’ star Shohei Ohtani and his former interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara.
This came a few days after the Dodgers fired Mizuhara, and Ohtani’s camp accused him of “massive theft” in regards to using Ohtani’s funds to pay off more than $4.5 million in gambling debt.
Then, earlier this week, Ohtani spoke out about the incident in a 12-minute press conference in which he didn’t take any questions, but answered a lot of the questions that arose throughout the last week.
And on Thursday’s Opening Day across the league, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred went on MLB Network’s High Heat, and spoke about myriad topics, including Ohtani.
“Given the way the story unfolded, it’s important in terms of assuring our fans about the integrity of the game that we verify the things that Mr. Ohtani has said, and it’s really that simple,” Manfred said to Chris Russo. “It’s really difficult for the federal authorities to cooperate with us fully when they have their own ongoing investigation so I think this is one where we’ll have to proceed on our own. We never have the kind of authority that law enforcement people have, but we manage to get these investigations done and find the facts and I’m sure we will on this one.”
Russo asked Manfred how long the investigation could take, and Manfred had a simple answer:
“I hope short, but I just don’t know.”
Ohtani isn’t expected to face any discipline during the ongoing investigation.
He made his Dodger Stadium debut as a member of the Dodgers on Thursday, and went 2-for-3 with a double, a walk and a run scored in Los Angeles’ 7-1 win over the St. Louis Cardinals.
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