Toronto Blue Jays manager John Schneider had some fun regarding Los Angeles Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani ahead of their matchup in the World Series.
“I hope he brought the hat, the Blue Jays hat he took from our meeting,” Schneider told reporters Thursday when discussing Toronto’s attempt to sign the two-way star in free agency ahead of the 2024 campaign. “And the jacket for Decoy. Give us our stuff back.”
This is something of a running bit for the Blue Jays manager, who also said, “If anything, just tell him we want our Blue Jays hat back that he took with him after our meeting,” when the Dodgers played at Toronto during the 2024 season.
Jokes aside, the American League East team came close to landing the game’s biggest star.
“The Blue Jays didn’t just float an offer to Ohtani; they put on a full-court press, involving every corner of the organization as they went stride-for-stride financially with the Dodgers, who eventually signed Ohtani to a 10-year, $700 million deal,” Keegan Matheson of MLB.com wrote.
Matheson also noted the Blue Jays bought Ohtani’s dog, Decoy, a Canadian dog jacket as part of his visit.
It is easy at this point for Toronto fans to wonder what could have been. After all, the team is one step away from a World Series title even without him and would be all the more dangerous with his bat in the lineup and arm in the rotation.
In a cruel twist of fate, it is Ohtani who the team has to defeat to get over the hump and win its first World Series since 1993.
If it does, perhaps reflecting on how close Ohtani was to joining the fold won’t be as painful in the future.
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