As the Los Angeles Dodgers prepare for a World Series matchup against the Toronto Blue Jays beginning Friday evening, there is a bit of history between the two powerhouses.
When three-time MVP Shohei Ohtani was being courted by various MLB franchises upon his departure from the Los Angeles Angels, the superstar essentially narrowed his options down to the Blue Jays and Dodgers.
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As the greater baseball world seems to have forgotten how close Canada was to locking down the franchise-altering phenom, Blue Jays manager John Schneider remembers everything, including the memorabilia given to Ohtani and his dog Decoy in hopes of luring him to the team.
“He’s a great player,” Schneider said Thursday of Ohtani. “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.”
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Schneider was obviously joking when saying this, and when Ohtani was asked about the Blue Jays gear he received, he appeared to know exactly where it was.
“It’s in my garage,” Ohtani said through his interpreter Will Ireton. “I plan to keep it because it was something that was a gift.”
The NLCS MVP spoke on the courting process as a whole and what it was like to be welcomed by the Blue Jays organization as he weighed his options.
“I really had a wonderful time getting to know them,” Ohtani said. “The impression I got was they were very top class. Awesome people. And so now, in the circumstance that we get to play them, it’s something I’m really looking forward to.”
The Dodgers will look to become baseball’s first back-to-back champions in a quarter century, as the Blue Jays will look to win their first championship since 1993 (their second consecutive title at the time).
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