Ippei Mizuhara, Shohei Ohtani's former translator, was sentenced in federal court Thursday to almost 5 years in federal prison, and owes restitution of $18 million he stole to pay off his gambling debts with an illegal bookie. He may also face deportation to his native country of Japan. This special crossover for KCRW is a continuation of the gambling scandal sage covered in our episodes "The Talented Mr. Ippei" and "The Complaint Against Ippei." Visit patreon.com/dodgerbluedream
Every team, every topic, everywhere.
This is believe.
Hey guys, it's been a minute.
Let's check in.
So it is February 7, 2025.
The train keeps rolling, the world keeps turning, and soon enough winter will turn to spring and once again there will be base.
And I, for one, cannot wait.
You and I have too much to catch up on to do it all in one sitting.
And I'm not going to even try to encapsulate everything that has happened since we last spoke.
Suffice it to say that it has been an incredible off season for the Los Angeles Dodgers organization and fan base in terms of signings, bringing players back and bringing new, incredibly exciting talent in.
Everybody thought of us as the Death Star team last year, but now, with our second consecutive stellar off season of signings, this Dodgers team is stacked like never before.
But that is not at all what we are here to talk about today.
No today we're closing the circle on a story that has continued to unfold just beneath the surface of this incredible last year of Dodgers baseball.
And in a way, we're back where we started with this show, back to a story that takes place off of the field and reminds us of the hard realities of life that is not baseball.
The Ippe Mizuhara gambling scandal that exploded out of the Dodgers clubhouse on opening day of 2024 reached a new conclusiveness yesterday, Thursday, February 6, in federal court in Santa Ana, California, when Ippe was sentenced to nearly five years in prison and ordered by a federal judge to pay restitution of $17 million to Shohei Ohtani for stealing that money from him to pay off gambling debts.
A sad story that has unfolded just beneath the surface during Shohei Ohtani's incredible first season on this team.
But for Ippe, it's been quite a different story since these two best friends last spoke.
As you will hear in this piece, which I prepared for the fine folks at KCRW FM here in Los Angeles, our beloved public radio institution.
A huge thanks to Sonia Geiss at kcrw, who reached out and asked me to make this piece and served as the story editor on this one.
I want to also shout out William Ryan Fritsch, whose musical compositions and performances underscore this piece.