Giants top executives resign amid baseball gambling scandal

Three top officials of Japan’s oldest professional baseball team, Yomiuri Giants, are stepping down following news that another of their players was found to have bet on baseball.

Local media outlet Japan Times reported that Kyosuke Takagi, a left-handed reliever who has pitched in 139 games in the past four seasons for the Giants, came clean about betting on baseball from 2014.

Takagi is the fourth Giants player to have been involving in baseball gambling, but none of the pitchers “were found to have been involved in match fixing or betting on games in which they actually played,” according to the report.

The player’s admission has prompted Giants owner Kojiro Shiraishi, team chairman Tsunekazu Momoi and the team’s adviser Tsuneo Watanabe to announce they are resigning from their positions. Watanabe, a powerful figure in the Japanese baseball world, was the owner of the Giants until he resigned in 2004.