Baseball’s biggest star found himself at the center of a stunning scandal this past week, as news broke that Shohei Ohtani’s longtime interpreter Ippei Mizuhara had been fired by the Los Angeles Dodgers after questions emerged regarding at least $4.5 million in wire transfers sent from Ohtani’s bank account that were allegedly used to pay off Mizuhara’s gambling debts.

Mizuhara was fired after reporters reached out asking about the wire transfers, prompting a rapidly evolving series of events. Ohtani’s lawyers have since said that in the course of responding to the media inquiries they discovered Ohtani had been the victim of a “massive theft” and that the matter would be turned over to the authorities.

The story, which was broken by the Los Angeles Times and ESPN, has quickly ballooned into one of the biggest in sports. One detail that has been repeated by a number of outlets is that prior to working with Ohtani, Mizuhara previously served as an interpreter for the Red Sox and worked with then-relief pitcher Hideki Okajima.

The Red Sox issued a statement Friday denying that was ever the case.

“We are reaching out to all of you because of reports in various outlets stating that Ippei Mizuhara worked for the Red Sox as an interpreter, which is incorrect,” the statement reads. “Mizuhara was never employed by the Boston Red Sox in any capacity and was not an interpreter for Hideki Okajima during the pitcher’s time with the team. Please know that we have thoroughly checked our files to ensure we are providing accurate information.”

The notion that Mizuhara worked for the Red Sox has been mentioned in a number of prominent places over the past few days, including articles published by the Associated Press, CBS Sports, Forbes and other outlets. The assertion is also included on Mizuhara’s Wikipedia page, which cites an article published by Nippon.com in October of 2021 as its source.

Okajima pitched for the Red Sox from 2007 to 2011. Prior to his firing Mizuhara had served as Ohtani’s interpreter since the two-way superstar’s arrival in MLB in 2018, and before that the two knew each other from their days with the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters in Japan.