Major League Baseball officials will tell anyone who listens that the integrity of the sport is safer than ever. Despite the widespread legalization of sports gambling, despite MLB’s lucrative partnerships with the gambling platforms, despite Americans legally wagering about $120 billion on sports last year alone, and despite in-game advertisements that encourage fans to place bets right now—despite all that, everything’s fine. Third-party security companies, baseball officials point out, are monitoring traffic on DraftKings, FanDuel, BetMGM, and other legal apps, and can see wagers in real time. They can flag curious activity in a matter of minutes and then trace the activity all the way to an IP address, usually someone’s computer or phone.
But, as I learned while reporting my book Charlie Hustle, about the rise and fall of Pete Rose, illegal bookies are still out there. They won’t be found in back alleys or smoky rooms like they once were; many bookies in 2024 have their own glossy websites. Some, just like the legal platforms, allow gamblers to place bets online. It’s easy and convenient. This traffic isn’t being monitored by baseball—or, often, anyone else—and it’s voluminous. According to the American Gaming Association, Americans wagered about $60 billion illegally on sports in 2022.
And we now know that everything is decidedly not fine. Baseball is facing its biggest gambling crisis since 1989, involving its most marketable star, Shohei Ohtani; Ohtani’s interpreter and close friend, Ippei Mizuhara; an alleged illegal bookie in Southern California; and alleged payments of millions of dollars in order to pay off massive gambling debts.
For those who don’t follow baseball, Ohtani isn’t just the sport’s highest-paid player, set to make a record $700 million over the course of his contract; he’s the most famous baseball player in the world. The 29-year-old Japanese superstar has established himself as one of the best hitters and pitchers in the game—a feat last accomplished by a guy named Babe Ruth. Ohtani hits towering home runs that disappear in the night, and he embarrasses opposing hitters with 100-mile-per-hour fastballs. In December, the Dodgers signed him, winning a free-agent sweepstakes that captivated American baseball fans and the Japanese public. He is a two-time Most Valuable Player and very much the face of the sport.
The details of the current scandal are murky and still unfolding. On Tuesday, Ohtani’s camp and Mizuhara himself told ESPN that Ohtani had agreed to pay off $4.5 million in gambling debts that Mizuhara had racked up. (Sports betting is illegal in California.) That, they explained, is why Ohtani’s name had allegedly appeared on wire transfers to the bookie. The next day, however, Ohtani’s representatives changed their story. Now they have accused Mizuhara of stealing the money, and Mizuhara has recanted his previous statement to ESPN. Whatever the outcome, and even though Mizuhara is alleged to have been betting on soccer and other sports, not baseball, the suggestion that the sport’s biggest star was in any way involved with millions of dollars in potentially illegal gambling and wire transfers is a nightmare for baseball on the cusp of Opening Day. It dredges up, all over again, the sordid tale that MLB has been trying to bury for 35 years—the tragic story of the baseball legend Pete Rose. The echoes here are so loud, in fact, that fans might need to cover their ears.
In 1989, Rose was an aging version of Shohei Ohtani, minus the pitching. He held the Major League hit record, was a lock for the Hall of Fame, and was, by acclamation, one of the greatest ballplayers of all time. Then, in February of that year, baseball officials heard a rumor about Rose’s dealings in the gambling underworld. As with the Ohtani scandal, reporters were digging into a story, and in the case of Rose, the details were especially scandalous.
Sports Illustrated was investigating the possibility that Rose had used bookies to bet on baseball, including his own team, the Cincinnati Reds. If guilty, Rose would have compromised the integrity of the sport and violated a well-known rule, posted in every clubhouse, that if broken could get him banished for life. In a rush, also not long before Opening Day, baseball’s top officials at the time scrambled to understand the scope of the damage. Outgoing Commissioner Peter Ueberroth, incoming Commissioner Bart Giamatti, and Giamatti’s hand-picked deputy commissioner, Fay Vincent, convened a secret meeting with Rose to discuss the problem. Soon, despite Rose’s many lies, both that day and in the weeks and months to come, baseball knew everything. Yes, Rose had bet on baseball and the Reds, and yes, he was going down—even though, in most cases, Rose hadn’t placed the bets himself. Whenever he wanted to get some action on a game, which was often, Rose had close friends place his bets for him.
It’s a problem that baseball officials and security providers have assured me could never happen today—at least if the player in question gambled legally. Security experts would be able to instantly identify strange and anomalous wagers, they have told me, even if the wagers were coming from a player’s close friend, lackey, or assistant. But the investigators who pursued Pete Rose in 1989 have long predicted that baseball, along with every other professional sports league, is not nearly as safe as it wants us to believe. Vincent, who later assumed baseball’s top post, has been especially concerned. And the Mizuhara case—however deep it goes, however it’s connected, or not, to Ohtani—proves that he is right to worry.
If a man with everyday access to a major-league locker room and the world’s most important baseball player could allegedly accrue a $4.5 million gambling debt, what else is happening out there in the shadows? What else don’t we know? As Vincent once told me, “I think there’s a very high probability of more Pete Roses, and there’s going to be more corruption.”
It’s only a matter of time, in other words, and maybe that time is now.
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