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Prior to the start of the baseball season, Los Angeles Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani found himself in the middle of a MAJOR illegal gambling ring involving his longtime translator, Ippei Mizuhara.

Ultimately, Ohtani would tell MLB officials and the Dodgers that he was unaware of Ippei’s actions due to a number of things, including his difficulties understanding everything because of the English / Japanese language barrier. This was despite Ippei initially telling ESPN and others that Shohei not only knew of his illegal gambling, but that Ohtani was willingly helping to finance his debt – which amounted to millions. This would of course be against MLB’s policies as well as would bring a lot of undesired attention around MLB’s international hero Ohtani. 

Yet, yesterday during the Dodgers World Series Championship Parade, Ohtani addressed the Dodgers faithful crowd in PERFECT English – which led many on social media to have some questions about that whole gambling thing.

OHTANI CLAIMS HE WAS UNAWARE OF ANY BETTING IPPEI DID

“This is a special moment for me. I’m so honored to be here and to be proud of this team in Los Angeles, thank you!” Ohtani said when addressing the Dodgers crowd.

Now, of course, Ohtani could have memorized that short speech ahead of time. However, social media was NOT going to let this just go by casually, especially as there were always questions about whether Ohtani was truly innocent – something that the authorities did say he was.

To make things even more interesting for the Twitter conspiracy theorists yesterday, earlier in the parade, Ohtani answered a question from a reporter without using his translator whatsoever about whether he would take his shirt off like some of his Dodgers teammates. 

He was able to understand the question AND answer that, but not know anything about his longtime interpreter, who was also his best friend, that spent over 300 days a year with him for nearly the last decade? According to the authorities, yes. But according to some on Twitter – absolutely not.

However, all MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred and anyone has to do today is search for word “Ohtani” on Twitter X and see that many fans are still not buying it.

So I ask you, the OutKick audience – what do you think?

DO YOU BELIEVE SHOHEI OHTANI WAS UNAWARE OF IPPEI’S GAMBLING INVOLVEMENT? TWEET ME: @TheGunzShow