During Game 1 of the World Series, the Toronto Blue Jays fans chanted “we don’t need you” to Los Angeles Dodgers’ two-way star Shohei Ohtani.
During his free agency ahead of the 2024 season, Ohtani visited Toronto as one of his finalists but ultimately chose to stay in Southern California and play for the Dodgers.
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His free agency was one of the most closely-watched in sports history, with fans becoming wrapped up in his thought process.
Planes were being tracked and reports coming from all kinds of sources, but in the end, the Blue Jays fell short in the sweepstakes.
Then, after the Blue Jays’ dominant (and historic) performance in World Series Game 1, they decided to let Ohtani hear how they truly felt.
Ohtani went on to win the World Series with the Dodgers in his first season, capturing the National League MVP as well, without even pitching.
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In 2025, Ohtani is likely to earn another MVP award, adding to his ever-expanding trophy cabinet. Considering how close Canadian fans were to witnessing Ohtani’s greatness regularly, their strife and pain are understandable.
“When we met with him, you felt good about it, and you felt good about the feedback he was giving about our organization and an opportunity here,” Blue Jays manager John Schneider said before the World Series.
“But you never really know what a player’s feeling in free agency, and there’s a lot of things that have to line up for them personally, too. You can’t really think about what if. You think about the 26 that we have.
“He’s a great player. I’ll say it again, I hope he brought his hat, the Blue Jays hat that he took from us in our meeting, I hope he brought it back finally — and the jacket for decoy, you know, it’s like, give us our stuff back already.
“But he’s a great player. But that aside, I think that we have a great team and just an unbelievable cast of characters and players. I think things worked out the way they’re meant to work out.”
Blue Jay fans will never let Ohtani live his decision down if their team wins another three games and raises the pennant.
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