Shohei Ohtani's 'flight' to Toronto: Why so many fans thought the Dodgers star was Blue Jaysbound in 2023 Jack Baer October 22, 2025 at 12:08 AM 0 The jokes were just too easy after the Toronto Blue Jays reached the 2025 World Series. This time, Shohei Ohtani really will be on a plane to Toronto.
- - Shohei Ohtani's 'flight' to Toronto: Why so many fans thought the Dodgers star was Blue Jays-bound in 2023
Jack Baer October 22, 2025 at 12:08 AM
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The jokes were just too easy after the Toronto Blue Jays reached the 2025 World Series. This time, Shohei Ohtani really will be on a plane to Toronto.
A multitude of baseball fans thought Ohtani was Canada-bound on Dec. 8, 2023, a truly bizarre day on social media which came one day before he made his widely expected choice of the Dodgers. Now, he and the Dodgers will face the team he most famously spurned in the Fall Classic, one of many narrative threads remaining in October.
Before the boos begin at the Rogers Center, it might be worth taking a look back on what exactly happened while Ohtani was looking for a new team.
Ohtani made the same proposal to the Dodgers and Blue Jays. Both accepted
Ohtani's free agency wound up being unusual for several reasons, even beyond his then eye-popping $700 million contract. For starters, he was the one who proposed the heavy deferrals that made his contract a dream. He also theoretically left even more money on the table with how he conducted his business.
Usually, when a player has three or four large-market teams vying for his services, his agent will encourage a bidding war. That's how Juan Soto landed a $765 million deal from the New York Mets. In Ohtani's case, however, it was later reported that several teams — including the Dodgers, Blue Jays, San Francisco Giants and Los Angeles Angels — were all given the same proposal, and each of those teams save for the Angels were ready to agree.
You would imagine Ohtani had his order of preference among teams willing to meet his price, with the Dodgers at the top thanks to their considerable resources and recent run of success.
The Blue Jays were ready to sign Shohei Ohtani to the same deal he got from the Dodgers. (Photo by Mark Blinch/Getty Images) (Mark Blinch via Getty Images)
That contract is already one of the biggest bargains in the history of sports. Not only has Ohtani filled his end of the bargain on the field — with potentially two World Series rings and two MVP awards in his grasp, plus a 50-50 season and maybe the greatest game ever played — he has also turned the Dodgers into a cultural powerhouse in Japan. The team is likely making enough money in new advertising revenue alone to cover the $70 million per year it has to either pay him or place in an escrow account for deferred compensation.
That could have been the Blue Jays. It looked like it was going to be the Blue Jays on one fateful day in 2023, when a not-small amount of social media users began preparing for Ohtani to emerge from a private plane, ready to become Canada's new darling.
The timeline of Shohei Ohtani's supposed flight to Toronto
What happened wasn't Ohtani's fault, but the team's fanbase clearly still holds his choice against him. We will likely see it again in a World Series in which both leadoff hitters will be loudly booed on the road — George Springer for cheating against the Dodgers in the 2017 World Series and Ohtani for not being on that plane.
Here's what happened that made so many fans think he was on that plane.
8:39 a.m. ET: Ohtani's decision is reported to be imminent
The confusion of the day doesn't happen without some priming, and that came courtesy of MLB Network reporter Jon Morosi. The veteran reporter tweeted in the morning that Ohtani's decision was imminent, with reports coming potentially as soon as that day.
Source: Shohei Ohtani's decision is imminent, possibly as early as today. @MLBNetwork @MLB
— Jon Morosi (@jonmorosi) December 8, 2023
Some observers noted that day was the six-year anniversary of Ohtani making his decision to sign with the Los Angeles Angels in his first foray into MLB, adding some weight to the idea that the day was special. At the very least, it reinforced the idea that Ohtani's timeline on this decision could be similar.
Blue Jays fans start flight-tracking
The Blue Jays became the team to follow soon after Morosi's report, as many fans on social media noticed a private flight scheduled to take off from John Wayne Airport near Anaheim that morning and land in Toronto that afternoon.
More than 4,000 people reportedly started following that public flight tracker, making it the most followed flight on FlightAware.
This is familiar behavior for any person who closely follows college football. In that sport, coaches leaving for other schools are often tracked from local airports and sometimes welcomed by fans at their destinations. It was novel in baseball, though, with a result even more messy.
9:42 a.m.: An opera singer says Yusei Kikuchi rented a sushi restaurant
An account purporting to be an opera singer claimed that Blue Jays starting pitcher Yusei Kikuchi had reserved an entire sushi restaurant near the Rogers Centre, almost as if he were planning to celebrate a big occasion for the team.
SOURCE: Yusei Kikuchi reserves entire upscale sushi restaurant near Rogers Centre for tonight. Reservation made for 50+ people. Make of it what you will…#BlueJays #NextLevel #MLB
— Clarence Frazer (@clarencefrazer) December 8, 2023
This report was entirely unsubstantiated, but it had the kind of specificity that made you wonder why anyone would make it up. It got more than 1,000 retweets as the day progressed.
1:53 p.m.: A veteran Dodgers reporter says it's the Blue Jays
This is when Ohtani-to-Toronto (Sho-eh? Sho-Jay?) passed the point of no return. Random fan speculation is one thing, but J.P. Hoornstra had reported on the Dodgers for more than a decade and a half with the Southern California News Group.
Now writing with Dodgers Nation, Hoornstra reported that Ohtani had chosen the Blue Jays, citing "multiple sources."
Shohei Ohtani's choice is in. This is not a drill.🔗: https://t.co/7xWU2Rv6fp
— J.P. Hoornstra (@jphoornstra) December 8, 2023
2:03 p.m.: Not so fast, my friend
It took about 10 minutes for someone to throw cold water on the report.
Sportsnet reporter Ben Nicholson-Smith tweeted that Ohtani had not made a decision and that there was no timeline to make a decision, directly disputing Hoornstra's and Morosi's reports. Nicholson-Smith reiterated that the Blue Jays remained a finalist for the phenom.
Source tells me and @ShiDavidi there is at present no decision made by Shohei Ohtani, nor is there a timeline for a decision#BlueJays are a finalist. We'll see where it leads.
— Ben Nicholson-Smith (@bnicholsonsmith) December 8, 2023
ESPN's Alden Gonzalez reported the same thing minutes later.
At this point, it felt like there was smoke with a conspicuous absence of fire. Hoornstra could've been wrong, yes, but it also seemed possible that he was right and the Blue Jays and Ohtani were in full denial mode because teams often like to have control over an announcement when it's as big as Ohtani.
4:01 p.m.: Morosi says Ohtani is en route to Toronto
The hype picked up again hours later, when Morosi jumped back into the fray to report that Ohtani was en route to Toronto — but without a signed agreement.
Sources: Shohei Ohtani is en route to Toronto today. A representative of his agency, CAA, would not comment when asked about Ohtani's travel plans.At this hour, Ohtani does not have a signed agreement with any @MLB team. @MLBNetwork
— Jon Morosi (@jonmorosi) December 8, 2023
It was around this point that misinformation started really circulating. Multiple accounts with blue checkmarks tweeted a video purporting to be Ohtani arriving in Toronto, while the original poster claimed it showed him arriving at the airport in Anaheim. There was a Christmas tree in the background, but the video was not from that day.
5:11 p.m.: Ohtani is not en route to Toronto
No fewer than five reporters soon tweeted that Ohtani was not headed to Canada and remained in Southern California, including USA Today's Bob Nightengale, The Athletic's Jim Bowden, Nicholson-Smith, the New York Post's Jon Heyman and the Orange County Register's Jeff Fletcher.
It was the full "Friends" finale: Ohtani wasn't on the plane.
5:54 p.m.: We found out who was on the plane
A fun little footnote arrived from CBC News' Devin Heroux, who reported that his outlet's photographer was at Toronto Pearson International Airport and confirmed that Ohtani was not a passenger on that widely followed private jet.
It was instead Canadian businessman Robert Herjavec, whose major claim to fame is being a host on the television series "Shark Tank."
Our CBC photographer Evan Mitsui is messaging me from Pearson Airport right now. He confirms new reports that Ohtani was NOT on the private jet. It was in fact carrying Canadian businessman Robert Herjavec and his family.
— Devin Heroux (@Devin_Heroux) December 8, 2023
Herjavec at least had a sense of humor about the slow-motion mishap that unfolded around him, posting that he would indeed sign with the Blue Jays on Instagram.
View this post on Instagram
A post shared by Robert Herjavec (@robertherjavec)
11:05 p.m.: Morosi apologizes
Morosi put a bow on the day by posting an apology for sharing "inaccurate information" that Ohtani was en route to Toronto. Two years later, all of his tweets from the day remain up.
Today, I posted reporting that included inaccurate information that Shohei Ohtani was traveling to Toronto. I regret the mistake and apologize to baseball fans everywhere. I am deeply sorry for letting you down.
— Jon Morosi (@jonmorosi) December 9, 2023
There was so much to learn Friday — from the dangers of confirmation bias to the importance of waiting for multiple credible sources to the mechanics of flight tracking. What we did not learn was where Ohtani is signing.
3:04 p.m. the next day: Ohtani says he's joining the Dodgers
It was almost anticlimactic when Ohtani made the announcement himself on Saturday — at least, until we learned the deal was for a record-shattering $700 million.
View this post on Instagram
A post shared by Shohei Ohtani | 大谷翔平 (@shoheiohtani)
And the rest is history.
Obviously, the Blue Jays have recovered from the disappointment of that Instagram post. The team won more games than the Dodgers this season with one of the five largest payrolls in MLB, and now have a chance to win their first World Series since 1993.
Ohtani on the Blue Jays will always be a tantalizing what-if though, and a seven-game series could make the currently one-sided hostility even more personal.
Source: "AOL Sports"
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