Speaker 1tisha good morning i know it's been a very busy morning for you thank you so much for the time tisha how did this start well we had been
Speaker 2looking into what you were talking in the days after our story broke in march 2024 i spent a lot of time retelling what had happened first ipe had told me in great detail about shohei helping him wire money to an illegal bookie then shohei's people said that story was a lie ipe had stolen the money so i called ipe and he took back nearly everything he said in that first interview he told me he had stolen from shohei a developing story in baseball the dodgers announced on wednesday they have fired shohei otani's long time interpreter ipe mizuhara the
Speaker 3interpreter is accused of using the ball player's money to cover millions of dollars in allegedly illegal bets espn investigative reporter tisha thompson is here with us to tell us more about this good morning good morning so i want to be clear but there were still
Speaker 2a lot of questions about what exactly had happened how does your
Speaker 4interpreter have access to your bank account so a lot more questions still to be answered
Speaker 2most of the answers i had were based on what ipe and otani's people had told me and i still wasn't sure who to believe or what really happened no one was answering our questions i tried to reach out to ipe again but he never responded it was a perfect story for sports fans and talk radio a classic he said he said which version of the story do you believe what's
Speaker 4been strange here is how many versions of the story have come from otani's camp itself so initially otani's camp said otani was kind of generously paying off the debts for his interpreter then otani's lawyers came in they said actually no he never knew anything about this i've been stealing money from him for years in
Speaker 2those early days after the story broke what you believed often came down to whether or not you rooted for shohei and the dodgers dodgers fans
Speaker 5so far are standing by otani i 100 don't believe that otani is involved in the gambling at all yeah i think he might have not known but it's also like you know are you not gonna know what's
Speaker 4going on i think
Speaker 6that
Speaker 4they're all doing it just the fact that he got caught because of the large numbers now you wonder if there's a level of distrust with baseball fans who are asking are you for real and he's the face of baseball and that's a problem for major league baseball right now
Speaker 2the pressure was building for someone to speak out and address the scandal finally five days after the story broke word went out that there would be a news conference shohei himself was going to speak dozens and dozens of reporters squeeze into the room at dodger stadium before the news conference even starts the dodgers announced that shohei will not be taking questions so whatever he says in his statement will be all reporters have to work with then shohei walks in and trailing just steps behind him where ipe would normally be is will ireton ireton is a longtime dodgers employee who once worked as a japanese interpreter and now he's interpreting for shohei this is the first time many people are seeing shohei speak without ipe beside him
Speaker 7obviously today there's things that i'm limited and being able to talk
Speaker 8about i hope you understand uh i do have a document in front of me that i will refer to
Speaker 2shohei and his new interpreter each have a black folder in front of them with what looks like a written statement but when shohei speaks he looks directly into the camera
Speaker 8in
Speaker 7conclusion ipe has been stealing money
Speaker 8from my account and has told lies
Speaker 2a six-year relationship that had touched nearly every part of shohei's life was over and shohei was breaking up with ipe in the most public way possible at a live news conference in front of the media and fans
Speaker 7upon further questioning it was revealed that it was actually
Speaker 8in fact ipe who was in debt and told my representatives that i was paying off those debts and all of this has been a complete lie
Speaker 2shohei
Speaker 7said ipe had been stealing from
Speaker 2him using his money to pay off debts to an illegal bookie he wanted to make it clear that he had never bet on baseball or any sports that he had never asked someone to bet on his behalf and he says he never used a bookmaker
Speaker 8well
Speaker 7you know to summarize how i'm feeling right
Speaker 8now i'm just beyond shocked it's really hard to verbalize how i am feeling at this point
Speaker 2this was the longest shohei had ever spoken publicly about his private life
Speaker 7shohei and his new interpreter
Speaker 2speak for 12 minutes
Speaker 8you know i'm looking forward to focusing on the season i'm glad that we had this opportunity to talk um and i'm sure there'll be uh continuing investigations moving forward that's it thank you very much
Speaker 2shohei gets up and walks out of the room this news conference was the first and last time shohei ever spoke publicly about what happened but in that news conference he was the first to speak publicly about what happened shohei placed the blame squarely on ipe and effectively severed ipe from himself from baseball and from the millions of fans who love shohei shohei's version of events was obviously very different from what ipe had told me in that first 90-minute phone call i had suspected ipe might be lying to me at certain points some of what he said during that call conflicted with what other sources had told me but at the same time a lot of it was true it was so detailed so complex that it seemed believable and there were moments when he sounded genuinely ashamed about his gambling and how shohei agreed to pay off his debts but then ipe told me he lied and now shohei was saying he didn't know anything about the bets and was accusing ipe of massive fraud fraud with shocking implications to get hired by one of the biggest franchises in mlb to steal millions with him with no one noticing not just from one of the most famous athletes on the planet but from someone he called his best friend a friend who he seemed to be with almost 24 hours a day what would have led him to do this? what kind of guy is he really? who is ipe? i'm espn investigative reporter tisha thompson and this is the betrayal of shohei otani episode 2 of the show hey otani episode 3 baseball boy here's the pitch to otani
Speaker 6federal investigation questions about wire transfers four and a half million dollars to a southern california bookmaker and he has no idea this episode is presented by gusto
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Speaker 2in early 2024 came from a media guide that had been put out by shohei's previous team the los angeles angels media guides give reporters biographic information about players and staff and it is super rare for an interpreter to get his own entry but the angels media guide outlined epay's background and resume where he grew up where he went to college and where he worked before he began interpreting for shohei it offered a window into the life of shohei otani's constant companion but a few days after our story broke we learned that there was a big problem with this media guide. We learned more details about Shohei Ohtani's translator. And if you look back at his past, it is checkered because he is lying. It turned out much of what was in Ipe's official team bio wasn't true. My ESPN colleague Tim Kuhn and I went through it to see what did and didn't hold up once reporters started asking questions. Okay, I want to go line by line since we're sitting here. It's his sixth season with the Angels as an interpreter. Is that true or false? True. Born in Japan? True. Grew up in Diamond Bar, California? True. Attended Diamond Bar High School? True. Graduating from the University of California, Riverside in 2007? Eh, false. Do
Speaker 1we know where he went to college? We don't think he went to college.
Speaker 2So the information the Angels had about his education was wrong. Mizahara served as an interpreter for Okajima? Hideki Okajima is a Japanese player who pitched for the Boston Red Sox. Ipe's bio says he interpreted for Okajima at one point.
Speaker 11The Boston Red Sox say they never employed him and he would have had to be an employee of the team in order to interpret for Okajima.
Speaker 2So the details about Ipe's experience were wrong too. It says Okajima during Yankee spring training in 2012.
Speaker 11And if you look at that, Okajima was injured at the end of the 11th season and never reported to spring training with the Yankees in 2012. So there was no fact-checking going on here.
Speaker 2Hideki Okajima even addressed this himself, writing on his Instagram that Ipe was supposed to interpret for him at Yankee spring training in 2012. But because Okajima failed a physical, they didn't end up working together. How did this all end up in the media guide? Is it possible there was no background check on Ipe when he came with Shohei to the Angels?
Speaker 1Looking at this, knowing what we know now, what does this say about the Angels and baseball's responsibility to protect its players?
Speaker 11It's a massive hole, right?
Speaker 2We reached out to the Yankees. We asked the Angels for comment. They declined to answer questions about Ipe. There's a culture in a lot of clubhouses of not messing with anything in a player's routine when they're playing well.
Speaker 11The Angels are thrilled to have him. They are willing to do whatever it takes to make his life as easy as possible.
Speaker 2No one was questioning Shohei or his interpreter. And Ipe's past was a big black hole. Ipe's past was a big black hole. Could learning about where Ipe came from get us any closer to the truth of what happened between these two men? And if he did do it, what could have led him to steal millions of dollars from his best friend? Our team started digging into Ipe's background. After he stopped responding to me, I reached out to Ipe's wife and parents, but through Ipe's attorney, they declined our request for interviews. At the same time, him got in touch with Ipe's high school soccer coach.
Speaker 11He was a soccer player, but in talking to his high school soccer coach, he can't even remember if he got into a game. He just knows that he went to every practice. He was a good teammate. He loved it, but wasn't particularly good at it. He was like a third string goalie. And this soccer coach also taught him in class in high school. And his line was, I remember the really good students and the really, really bad students, and he was neither.
Speaker 2So Ipe played soccer in high school. I figured that's a good place to start. Maybe one of his old teammates would talk to me. I drive into Diamond Bar High School's parking lot just as school is letting out. As kids pour out of the building, I walk into the front office and ask one of the school secretaries if I could see the yearbooks from 1999 to 2003. I don't see Ipe in any school. I don't see him in any sports team photos, not even soccer. His name isn't listed on the JV or varsity team rosters, and it doesn't look like he was in any clubs. There he is. But I do find his class portrait in a couple of yearbooks. Okay, Ipe is in his senior and junior yearbooks. His sophomore year, he doesn't exist in the yearbook anywhere. In his freshman year, he's in the yearbook. But there's no picture of him. There's just this quote about technology and how it makes it super easy to do what he needs to do. It's weird to me that his photo is completely missing from his freshman and sophomore yearbooks. Was he sick on picture day? Or did something else happen? I take photos of every student in his 2003 graduating class and every player on the Diamond Bar High School soccer team who he might have played with. I start reaching out, asking if any of them remember me. I remember a kid named Ipe Misahara. And I tracked down someone I've been told was a close friend of Ipe's.
Speaker 12When did you first meet Ipe? Like, how far back do
Speaker 2you
Speaker 12guys go? We go back in middle school. I met him in sixth or seventh grade.
Speaker 2Steven Akimoto went to middle school and high school with Ipe.
Speaker 12Since our school was predominantly, it was like Asians, but then it was like Koreans and Chinese. It was in a lot of Japanese. And so we were a rare breed. And so we clicked instantly.
Speaker 2Both Steven and Ipe were born in Japan, but were raised in Southern California.
Speaker 12I think for any immigrant growing up in America, like, you don't know what your identity really is because you look a certain way. So you look like an Asian. So people assume you're Japanese. But then when you go to Japan, they're like, oh, you're from America. You're American. So it's like, what am I really? And then so you kind of have like this identity crisis a little bit. And so maybe he picked a side. But for Japanese, during that time when we were kids. Where does his knowledge of the Japanese language come from? It was majority from television and also from comic books, like manga. Like we would be reading manga and be like, oh, do you know this word? No. Or do you know this word? Like, I think it means this. And then we'll go ask one of our parents like what it says. And then we're like, ah, we were right. Or you're right. He's a very competitive guy. I remember that.
Speaker 2Steven says Ipe's parents worked late. Ipe's dad was a chef, and his mom was a nurse. Ipe was on his own a lot.
Speaker 12We would hang out almost every day at his house, usually at his house, or just playing sports, basketball, or a little bit of baseball.
Speaker 2Steven remembers Ipe being the most devoted sports fan in their friend group. And as much as Ipe liked to play sports, he seemed to be even more interested in the players themselves.
Speaker 12I remember his knowledge was very extensive as far as like sports goes. Like he knew a lot of like certain things about sports. In all sports, pretty much. So when we would look at cards, I'm like, who's that player? I have no idea. And he's like, oh yeah, this is blah, blah, blah. And then he would tell me like, you know, small bits of the player.
Speaker 2I also spoke to another friend of Ipe's from high school, but he didn't want to be recorded. This friend remembers how Ipe loved, like truly loved baseball. This was back in the day when you had to use a VCR to tape a game you wanted to keep. And Ipe would tape all of the Dodgers games whenever Hideo Nomo was the starting pitcher.
Speaker 5Struck him out. That is a new mark for Nomo. 17. A magnificent performance for Hideo Nomo.
Speaker 2But Ipe's loyalty switched to the Seattle Mariners when Ichiro Suzuki began playing in the United States.
Speaker 13And Ichiro goes back to the track, to the wall, and makes a leap and makes the catch! Unbelievable! My, oh my, what a catch by Ichiro!
Speaker 2Leaping almost. Ipe played Little League, and a friend said he even made the All-Star team. He tried out for the baseball team his freshman year of high school, but didn't make the cut. So he and Steven tried basketball. And did you make the team?
Speaker 12No, no, we both did. Okay. And
Speaker 2then
Speaker 12when you didn't make the team, you're like, forget this. We're moving on. Yeah, we're moving on. Yeah, smoke cigarettes.
Speaker 2Ipe did eventually, eventually make the soccer team as a goalie his senior year. But he never got off the bench. So Ipe just walked away. Ipe's friends say that's why he isn't in the team photo. He had already quit. It didn't seem like he had much more success in the classroom either. His friends say Ipe was smart, but slacked off in class and looked down at kids he called try-hards.
Speaker 12He wasn't really into, like, the norm, I would say. Like, what's in. So he always did his own thing. And, like, for one good example would be his hairstyle. It hasn't changed since, like, middle school. It's always been that. Really? Yeah. I think he dyed it a couple times. But other than that, he doesn't really play with his hair. So that asymmetrical part with the real long bangs that goes to the side,
Speaker 2that's the way
Speaker 12it's been since middle school? Yeah, it hasn't changed.
Speaker 2Steven says Ipe loved this Japanese rock band called Glay. ♪
Speaker 14He also listened
Speaker 2to a lot of Tupac. You have to remember, this was the era when L.A. hip-hop dominated the airwaves. It was edgy. It was cool. Especially for the kids from Diamond Bar, who weren't far from Compton, but were firmly in the suburbs.
Speaker 12Yeah, exactly what it is. We were trying to be harder than you actually were. Trying to impress others, I guess. Like, oh, we know gang members.
Speaker 2And both friends remember Ipe really loved to hustle.
Speaker 12He would sell, I believe it was cards, like baseball cards. And we would go to this convention. They had it every week, and then they'd sell sports memorabilia or anime stuff. Oh, really? So was he really into that? He was into that. I tagged along with him a couple times. And he would look at baseball cards, look at prices and stuff like that. Did he buy stuff? He did. And I was like, what are you going to do with that? Like, I don't know what you're going to do with that. It would be the expensive kind. And then he would also, like, haggle a little bit, too. I remember he said he wanted an electric guitar. He's been saying that forever. And the next day I go to his house, he has an electric guitar. He doesn't have an amp. And then, you know, months later, he has an amp. And I'm just like, I never really questioned where he got the money from.
Speaker 2Ipe's other friend told me that Ipe seemed to just get excited by the process of buying things and then reselling them. Video games. Team jerseys. And those baseball cards. And he says Ipe would try to place bets with him about small things. Like who'd win in a video game. Or the outcome of a Dodgers game. But the friend never worried about Ipe having a gambling problem. He always thought it was just for fun. Both friends told the same story about why Ipe's picture was missing from his sophomore yearbook. He didn't attend Diamond Bar that year. He was at an alternative. He was at an alternative school for students with attendance or discipline issues. Ipe was back at Diamond Bar High School his junior year. And his friends say Ipe was going to nearby tribal casinos by the time they graduated.
Speaker 12I think it was like from 18 you can start gambling there. And yeah, I went much later, like senior year, I believe. Was that like the hot thing to do in those days? Yeah. I mean, I guess. Yeah. Because it was only like a 30 or 40 minute drive. An hour and an hour driving. So you just come back real quick and without your parents knowing.
Speaker 2Stephen lost track of Ipe after graduation, but says his mother and father remember seeing Ipe soon afterwards.
Speaker 12My parents went to the sake expo and saw him working a booth at a convention. So they go, yeah, I work here. And my dad specifically remembers him giving my parents like free sake at the event.
Speaker 2The other high school friend. The one who didn't want to be recorded, told me that he ran into Ipe only once after high school. Ipe told him he'd been taking classes at a community college the next town over from Diamond Bar. I was able to confirm this and confirm that he never graduated and that his major was accounting. Ipe's paper trail basically vanishes after this. When we ran a background check, we couldn't find any employers, any addresses. Any. Any friends that could give us a hint about what he was doing for eight years between 2004 and 2012. But then he pops back up with a whole new sense of direction. The Nippon Ham Fighters baseball team interviewed Ipe in 2012 for a role they needed to fill. An interpreter for American players on the team. The team was impressed with Ipe's Japanese, his personality, and offered him the job. So Ipe heads to Hokkaido, Japan. And to begin a new career as an interpreter.
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Speaker 15I got a phone call from my agent and he goes, hey, I got some interest in Japan. Do you want to go? And I go, yeah.
Speaker 2This is Mitch Lively. He's a former minor league pitcher for organizations like the San Francisco Giants, the Colorado Rockies, the Washington Nationals. And after that phone call from his agent, the Nippon Ham Fighters.
Speaker 15Calls me the next morning, pack your stuff, you got sold.
Speaker 2Mitch didn't speak a word of Japanese. And he says he almost immediately realized he was going to have to, rely on an interpreter a lot more than he anticipated.
Speaker 15In international sports, when you play, your translator is your lifeline. Without it, you won't get by. You won't understand anything what's going on. So you'd use them as your voice and they help a lot.
Speaker 2When Mitch landed in Japan, he was introduced to his interpreter, a guy named Ipe Mitsuhara.
Speaker 15Him and I really got along, especially him living in the States. So he understood my culture a little bit more.
Speaker 2By the time Mitch met, I've been able to communicate with Ipe in 2015. Mitch says Ipe was an expert at his job. Ipe made sure Mitch got to the field okay. Helped him understand the schedule and coordinated media interviews. And Mitch says Ipe had a special talent for the actual interpreting part of the job.
Speaker 15Ipe Mitsuhara: He would be really loose with me rather than being like so serious and be like, what are you doing? Like he would translate it with the tone in which I was trying to deliver it. And that's the most important thing. So he's a very reliable guy. Very hardworking. I had experience with him. It didn't matter if it was 2:00 in the morning, 3:00 in the morning. He always answered his phone.
Speaker 2And Mitch says Ipe was vital off the field as well.
Speaker 15Ipe Mitsuhara: Showed me how to use the train system. If I had paperwork or wife stuff, they would always handle those. Like, hey, I need visas. All right, they're going to take you to go do your visa work. If I was out at a bar or whatever, I'm like, hey, I can't get a taxi. Call him, taxi shows up.
Speaker 2Mitch says Ipe became more than just an interpreter to him.
Speaker 15Ipe Mitsuhara: You know, it's a friendship, it's a coworkership, but it also like you become friends to a certain point because you're spending 8 hours a day minimum with each other. You know, hey, I need a nice restaurant. Where's the place to go? No, don't tell me, show me. Like come with me. You know, we go to a lot of yakiniku and sushi. We did karaoke a lot. I would always sing Backstreet Boys with him.
Speaker 2But Mitch could tell Ipe had ambitions beyond the Nippon ham fighters.
Speaker 15Mitch Mitsuhara: He loved baseball. He loves sports. And I just think that translating was a way to get him into the door to something he loved. You know, and to learn about. And you get to be around professional athletes and if you're not an athlete, that's the best way to do it. You know, I think his goal was to go to the States with a major leaguer that he wanted that one-on-one not to be owned by a team, if that makes sense, and wanted to come back to the States.
Speaker 2Mitch thought Ipe would be great at a job like that. He saw how attentive Ipe was with his family.
Speaker 15Mitch Mitsuhara: The biggest thing, my wife got really sick one time and he literally dropped the hat, got her to the hospital and taken care of. The game. So he literally left the game to go take care of my wife.
Speaker 2Ipe was sitting in on appointments, helping them with visas and other documents. And Mitch says he never thought twice about it.
Speaker 15Mitch Mitsuhara: I never felt a situation where he was going to take advantage of me or anything like that. I've never felt that with him, but he never had access to any of my account stuff or anything
Speaker 14like that. Kota Ishijima: Money was something that we never touched, we never saw and didn't have to be part of it.
Speaker 2That's Kota Ishijima. She worked as an interpreter for a TV show. She worked for teams like the New York Yankees and the Mets and has worked with some of the Japanese greats. When she heard about Ipe stealing from Shohei, she says it felt like a betrayal to the interpreter
Speaker 14profession. Kota Ishijima: I was pissed. How in the world did something like this happen? Kota has a theory about what might have happened. Kota Ishijima: Shohei has already said it. All he knew was baseball. All these kids here in Japan, when they play up until high school, that's all they did. They don't know anything about what goes on in the world. Kota Ishijima: There's a
Speaker 2Japanese saying, yaku shounen. It translates to baseball boy, a boy who lives and breathes baseball. Shohei is the epitome of the baseball boy. He was as focused in high school as Ipe was unfocused.
Speaker 11Kota Ishijima: He went from eighth grade to essentially a baseball boarding school. He went away from his family. family. He lived in the dorms. He played baseball, he was under a very different social structure than the average American player.
Speaker 2A couple of years ago, my ESPN colleague Tim Kewin went to Japan and spoke with the coach from Shohei's high school.
Speaker 11You know, the coach there famously made his pitchers clean the toilets because they are the center of the diamond and all the attention is on them in the baseball sense. So they need to do the worst job, which would be clean the toilets in the dorms.
Speaker 2For a baseball-obsessed kid like Shohei, the goal is to play in Koshien, a legendary annual high school baseball tournament. He caught nationwide attention when during a qualifying game at just 18 years old, Shohei threw a 100-mile-an-hour fastball.
Speaker 11That was like front page. That's the one that people point to. That was like a tangible number that they could prove. He put on his budding greatness.
Speaker 2There's videos of that pitch online. And watching it, Shohei looks so young. He's beaming in the moments after the throw, like he knows he just did something historic.
Speaker 11He was a brand in high school in Japan.
Speaker 2Shohei was catching the eyes of American scouts even before he graduated. But he wanted to be a two-way player, to pitch and to hit. And Tim says Shohei knew that. He knew that he might not get the chance to develop those skills if he went straight to MLB. So he opted to begin his professional career in Japan.
Speaker 15I remember he was pitching, and I go, who is this guy, man?
Speaker 2Shohei started playing with the Nippon Ham Fighters in 2013. Two years later, Mitch joined the team and got to watch him play up close.
Speaker 15Like, he would pitch, and you'd see 30 guns go up in the air. I'm like, who is this kid? He's throwing 100. They're flashing a 160 on the thing. Ends up pulling him out of the game in the eighth inning, and I see they put him in right field. I go, what the heck? And he comes up and hits a walk-off home run in the ninth. I go, who is this guy? And hands down, I tell people, the best baseball player I've ever seen play in my life. Shohei's
Speaker 2locker was next to the American players and gave Mitch a chance to get to know the young phenom. He was
Speaker 15funny, real funny. Like, he would joke with me, come up, like, try to talk to me, and we'd joke. And I have a picture of him with his arm around me. And I remember that I was in the Tokyo Dome. We had just won, and we were literally poking fun, because I'm not going to Hey, you're like my little baby bird. Like, you're smaller than me. So, like, yeah, I had to reach up on you. So, just fun things. Like, just poke fun.
Speaker 2By 2017, Shohei felt like he'd proven himself enough to be a two-way player in MLB. And by the end of that year, he signed with the Angels. So, he needed an interpreter. Ipe had a good reputation. Reporters, players, and the team seemed to like working with him. And although Ipe and Shohei weren't particularly close, at the time, Mitch says he wasn't surprised when Shohei picked Ipe.
Speaker 15They're going to see who do we use the most. Who are we taking to our interviews? I think that played a huge part in things. And to see that he was with the team for so long.
Speaker 2So, Shohei and Ipe made the move to Anaheim. For Ipe, who was raised in California, it was something of a homecoming. But for Shohei, it was a whole new adventure. Once I put on my new jersey, the Angels jersey, I felt like this is going to be a new year, and I'm going to have to perform well and help the team win. And not long after his MLB debut, Shohei began his meteoric rise.
Speaker 53-2 now. Swing and a miss. Down goes Olsen. And tip your cap, Shohei Ohtani. You deserve it this afternoon. Remarkable season, and Ohtani, forget about it! The better he
Speaker 2played, the more airtime and the bigger the spotlight was for Ipe. Here in Miami, Shohei Ohtani. Ipe is an interpreter right there with us as well. Guys, how do you wrap your mind? Everyone wanted a piece of Shohei. But because he didn't share much about himself, people turned to the next closest thing. Ipe. He was becoming a household name in the baseball world. You're very popular around. Everyone's digging your hair. How many people now say they want to have the Ipe haircut working, man? Zero. Pretty much every time you pulled up the game to watch Shohei, you'd see Ipe.
Speaker 12I turned on the TV, on the news, and then they were talking about Shohei's interpreter. And then they said Mizuhara. And I'm like, oh, like Ipe.
Speaker 2This is Steven Nakamoto again, Ipe's high school friend.
Speaker 12And then they're like, Ipe Mizuhara. And then they were talking about dad is a chef. And I'm like, oh, just like Ipe. And I'm like, is that Ipe? And then I look it up and it actually him. And I was just like, damn, like, what the fuck?
Speaker 2That guy from high school who basically vanished for eight years re-emerged with the coolest job ever.
Speaker 12I couldn't believe it at first. And it's like, really, Ipe? Dude, it's like, maybe I was like jealous, but I was just like taken back.
Speaker 2Ipe's other high school friend, the one who didn't want to be recorded, was also shocked to see where Ipe had landed. Here was Ipe literally on the ball field, speaking Japanese with Japan's biggest baseball star. He went from being in Little League to being Shohei's catcher at the MLB All-Star game. Ipe wasn't just collecting the baseball cards of the biggest names in MLB. He was now rolling with them.
Speaker 4This is a great look. Is this your favorite red carpet outfit?
Speaker 2I'm not really sure, but I hope it is. His friends say it was everything Ipe had ever wanted when they were in high school. And Shohei was also living his childhood dream, becoming a rare two-way player in the major leagues.
Speaker 11When he comes here, they're happy, this two-way player who, if we just leave him alone, he'll do things that, you know, nobody thought possible.
Speaker 2Tim says that meant the Angels gave Shohei a lot of leeway in terms of how he managed his time, which Ipe seemed to be a big part of, both on and off the field.
Speaker 11His manager told me one time, I don't know what he's doing when he's at the ballpark. That to me was amazing because everybody follows a schedule. There's a meeting with the pitching coach. There's a hitter's meeting. There's time in the cage. He was subject to nothing. None of it, from what I could tell. He was just, let him do what he does with whoever he wants to do it with, which was always Ipe, and get out of his way. Just get out of his way. Let him do his thing. That was the sort of prodigy treatment he received when he came to the big leagues.
Speaker 2That kind of special treatment extended to what was expected of Shohei when it came to talking to the media.
Speaker 11There's a window of roughly 50 minutes before every game where the club house is open, and you can walk up to anybody that's at their locker and talk to them.
Speaker 2A lot of players will hang around and give reporters a couple minutes of their time here and there. It's just what's expected, even from some of the really big-name guys. But not Shohei. Shohei would hang out with Ipe, walled off in the players' lounge, off-limits to the media.
Speaker 11They would sit at the table in the players' lounge and hold each other's phones up to each other and laugh. Ipe, walled off in the players' lounge and hold each
Speaker 2other's phones up
Speaker 11to each other. I should stay quiet. Ipe is the boss. And I thought that was like, that he was even in their minds when they were talking to reporters was, to me, a sign of just how deeply ingrained he was in this whole life of Shohei Otani.
Speaker 2By 2024, Ipe and Shohei had worked closely together for six years. Ipe told me in our interview, they were like brothers. He was not just Shohei's interpreter, but essentially his personal assistant, his driver, his warm-up partner, sometimes his dog walker. Ipe was entwined in so many aspects of Shohei's life, and he had so much access. During his time with the Angels, Ipe told me he felt pressure to keep up with Shohei's lifestyle. And he says he was having money problems. His official team bio doesn't check out. His friends say he was a hustler. and began gambling in casinos in high school. But then there are people who have worked closely with Ipe and speak really highly of him who were surprised when this happened. As an interpreter, Ipe had a great reputation. He impressed coaches, fans, and especially the players he worked for.
Speaker 15When I first saw it, I was just like, what? No way. Like, what's going on?
Speaker 2Mitch Lively, who worked closely with Ipe in Japan, says when it came to money, he and Ipe had a typical
Speaker 15ballplayer-interpreter relationship. In my relationship with him, he didn't access any of my money without me giving him money. I never asked for it.
Speaker 2But we would later learn that Ipe had a very different relationship
Speaker 8with Shohei. In conclusion, Ipe has been stealing money from my account and has told lies.
Speaker 2When Shohei told his side of the story at the news conference, my colleague Alden Gonzalez was standing close enough to see the words in the statement Shohei had prepared.
Speaker 16Going into it, there was obviously a lot of skepticism, a lot of cynicism. But if you were to believe what he was saying, you felt bad for him.
Speaker 7So Ipe has been telling
Speaker 8everybody around that Ipe has been communicating with Shohei on online, all of this account to my representative, to the team. And that hasn't been true.
Speaker 2Alden says he will never forget Shohei's demeanor that day.
Speaker 16He looked directly at the camera for almost the entirety of it. And there were even times where I would venture to say that it seemed as if he was on the verge of breaking down, of getting emotional. It was as engaged as I have ever seen him. It was as engaged as I have ever seen and still have ever seen Shohei Ohtani in any moment, in any public setting.
Speaker 2But ultimately, Shohei didn't take any questions. He faced down such a large scandal with a single statement.
Speaker 17Why is this guy allowed to not be asked questions? Tell me another athlete that would never have to make a press conference where he's asked question after question. Alex Rodriguez was asked question after question. Pete Rose was asked question after question. This guy's never had his feet held to the fire, ever.
Speaker 2People were wondering, why not take questions? That choice left lots of room for people to speculate about how Ipe could have pulled this off and how all of this added up.
Speaker 18How many bets did he make? None of them on baseball, by the way. Isn't that amazing? Not one of them on baseball. Doesn't that send up kind of a red flag for you? For a guy that was so desperate, losing so much money, he never bet on the sport that he was the closest
Speaker 16to? Even afterwards, after Shohei Otani gave his statement, there were a lot of players who were like, we don't know. We don't know if it's true. We have no idea. I think prominent members of the Dodgers were still like, we'll see what the feds say,
Speaker 2you know? We'll see what the feds say. Because when Shohei accused his interpreter of stealing millions, he elevated a betting scandal to a massive crime. The feds had already been investigating the illegal bookmaking, but now they were turning their attention to E-Pay. And central to that investigation would be one man. I gambled bigger than most, right? And I've never seen anything like it. I've seen some wild stuff, but never like this. Matt Boyer, who took E-Pay's bets and Shohei's money, who was going around telling everyone he'd hooked the biggest star in baseball. The greed side of me is like, this is great. You know, this guy could lose $50 million and afford it. That's next. On The Betrayal of Shohei Ohtani. The Betrayal of Shohei Ohtani is based on reporting by me, Tisha Thompson, with support from Tim Kuhn and the ESPN Investigative Unit. Our producer is Carrie Ann Thomas. Our senior producer is Max Green. Our senior editorial producer is Preeti Varathan. Our associate producer is Matt Boyer. Our executive producer is Gus Navarro. Story editing by Audrey Quinn, Elaine Tang, Eric Neal, and Mike Drago. Additional editing by Rebecca Hudson. Our archival producer is Jennifer Wheelock. Our line producer is Catherine Sankey. Production managers are Jason Schwartz and Sheena Williams. Fact-checking by John Mastroberadino with David Sabino. Additional editorial review from Masa Niwa. Original music by Allison Leighton-Brown and John Delore. Sound design by John Delore. Chris Ball, Michael Buckle is vice president of ESPN Investigative Enterprise and Digital Journalism. Marsha Cook, Brian Lockhart, Heather Anderson, and Burke Magnus are executive producers for 30 for 30. David Roberts, Mike Foss, and Roxanna Scott are executive producers for ESPN.
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