Wetzel: Shohei-Ippei scandal fades when lessons should ring louder

Last week, Shohei Ohtani and the Los Angeles Dodgers were in Philadelphia, taking two of three from the Phillies as they barreled along to another possible MVP year (for the player) and World Series title (for the team). About a three-hour drive away, inside a federal prison in central Pennsylvania, sat Ippei Mizuhara, onetime interpreter, confidant and self-described friend of Ohtani turned convicted fraudster, inmate and cautionary tale. A little over two years ago, the baseball superstar and interpreter/personal assistant appeared inseparable. Now, as one becomes more beloved by the game, the other is mostly forgotten. At the peak of Mizuhara's crimes against Ohtani, he placed an average of 26 sports bets per day with a bookmaker (19,000 in total). He won $142 million but lost $183 million, a negative balance of $40.7 million. To try to pay it back, he ripped at least $16 million, using access to one of Ohtani's bank accounts and even going as far as impersonating the baseball great in security calls to authorize $500,000 wire transfers. That doesn't count the $325,000 in baseball cards or $60,000 in dental work Mizuhara bought via Ohtani's account, which was flush with salary deposits from the Angels, but, the feds say, was mostly unwatched by either the player or any of his representatives. The scam was both massive and simple, both old and new. This was an addict and opportunist with such influence over his victim that he controlled virtually every word of communication, including to and from team officials, agents and the media. Mizuhara didn't strike anyone as a potential criminal; slightly built and mostly quiet, born in Japan and raised in Southern California, a baseball-obsessed kid who got to the majors in the most unlikely way imaginable, as an interpreter for perhaps the greatest player of all time. That dream fulfilled should have been enough. Ohtani, meanwhile, has always been impossible to read, an unfathomable talent on the field but so private that he is mostly a mystery off it. (Dodgers manager Dave Roberts, for example, found out Ohtani had gotten married via Instagram.) For many years, the only way anyone learned anything about Ohtani was through whatever Mizuhara said he said. Given the source, who knows what parts to even believe. With talent that often seems too good to be true, many people were fine not knowing much else. Just keep pitching and hitting and selling tickets. All of this sets the backdrop to one of the most astounding stories in recent years, brilliantly told in "The Betrayal of Shohei Ohtani," from ESPN investigative reporter Tisha Thompson and 30 for 30 Podcasts. It details the relationship, the crime and the eventual sentencing of Mizuhara to 57 months in federal prison. All along, despite a flipped explanation, a doubting public and questions about extreme naiveté, federal investigators and prosecutors assert that Ohtani was nothing more than a victim. There is extensive evidence to back it up, from electronic receipts, to interviews, to details such as the fact that in a review of some 40,000 text messages between Shohei and Ippei, there isn't a single mention of gambling of any kind, let alone on sports. Ohtani simply trusted Mizuhara, who used that trust to feed an ever-increasing addiction. For all of sports -- from the players, to the teams, to the leagues -- this story should serve as another reminder of the danger that can find literally anyone, even someone who seems to be a soft-spoken, clean-living international icon. The bigger the talent, the bigger the target. Mizuhara had gambled before, mostly through fairly low-stakes poker or during trips to California casinos. Then he was introduced to Matt Bowyer, a local, high-volume bookmaker. Once sports wagering entered the equation, Mizuhara fully lost control, betting (and losing) relentlessly. Gambling addictions are not new, but the speed and sophistication of modern sports wagering is like introducing an exponentially more powerful new street drug onto the scene. As the debt piled up, Bowyer noticed the payments were coming from an account with Ohtani's name on it. Confident that future losses would be squared, he kept extending credit. With each cycle, the hole got deeper; Mizuhara's stolen payouts actually made things worse. It eventually consumed everything and everyone -- Bowyer served his own seven-month federal stint. That Ohtani escaped unscathed (other than financially) is the blessing of the story. With this kind of debt and in this kind of underworld, it doesn't always play out innocently. No one is untouchable. In this case, the criminal is behind bars, while the superstar is free to play and earn and make history, season after season. Once seemingly always together, the two sit now on opposite trajectories, and the scandal continues to fade, even if the warning it provides should ring out louder than ever.