TORONTO — It all started with a tweet.
Two of them, actually.
On Dec. 8 last year, during a Friday afternoon in the thick of MLB’s offseason, Toronto-based freelance photographer — and proud Blue Jays fan — Carlos Osorio was scrolling through X (formerly Twitter) when he saw a flurry of social media speculation centered on Shohei Ohtani.
It began with one post tracking a private jet flying from Orange County to Toronto; one that online sleuths deduced must have been taking Ohtani to meet — or sign — with the Blue Jays, a known finalist in the sweepstakes for the free-agent star.
Then came apparent confirmation from an MLB Network reporter, who asserted that “Shohei Ohtani is en route to Toronto today,” citing multiple unspecified sources.
With his curiosity piqued, and his Blue Jays fandom buzzing, Osorio decided to jump into action. He emailed his editor with Reuters, offering to drive to Toronto Pearson Airport to capture Ohtani’s supposed arrival. He joined a pack of other photographers and autograph hounds who watched as the plane touched down at 4:23 p.m. local time, fully expecting Ohtani to soon be in his sights.
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“Oh my god, here we go,” Osorio thought to himself as he followed the plane’s taxi to a hangar tarmac. “We’re gonna have the first pictures of Ohtani.”
When the door opened, however, it was Canadian businessman and television celebrity Robert Herjavec who descended the steps.
In a mix-up of epic, social media-fueled proportions, the reality of the saga suddenly became clear.
Ohtani wasn’t on the plane, which was actually Herjavec’s personal jet (the final characters of the plane’s tail number, N616RH, reportedly correspond to Herjavec’s initials).
The superstar slugger wasn’t signing with the Blue Jays either, announcing instead the next day he was going to the Dodgers on a 10-year, $700 million deal.
Like many fellow Blue Jays fans, Osorio’s heart immediately sank.
“The plane lands, and I’m like, ‘S—,’” Osorio recalled this week. “We get there just in time to see Robert getting out of this plane and going into a car. That was it.”
There had been plenty of smoke, but no actual fire.
“I think if we had probably Googled the plane, we maybe could have found a photo of Herjavec and the plane somewhere,” Osorio laughed upon reflection this week, noting that Herjavec is well-known in Canada from his appearances on TV shows like “Dragon Den” and “Shark Tank.”
“But I was just so hyped,” Osorio added. “Like, [Ohtani] has to be on it. He’s coming. He’s gonna be a Blue Jay. We’re gonna win the World Series.”
For the first time since that day, Ohtani and the Dodgers will return to Toronto on Friday, opening a three-game series with the Blue Jays at Rogers Centre.
By now, enough time has passed that the flight has faded from daily conversation — around the Blue Jays, the Dodgers and a baseball industry that at the time had frenzied over the situation.
“I was as surprised as any fans,” Ohtani said through interpreter Will Ireton this week, “in terms of the news that was going around.”
Still, the story line will loom as a subplot not only this weekend, but for possibly months and years ahead for both teams.
The Dodgers feared they had lost Ohtani, only to land him the next day. The Blue Jays hoped they were getting the Japanese star, only to strike out in what became an underwhelming offseason. And Ohtani himself was left stuck in the middle, sitting at home wondering what to make of all the false information.
“I did meet with the Blue Jays organization, and the impression that I got was it was a really, really great organization,” Ohtani said. “The fans are really good. The city, too.”
As for the rumors of the Dec. 8 flight, and a coinciding report from a Dodgers-centric website claiming Ohtani was indeed signing with the Blue Jays?
“I was just following the news,” Ohtani said with a chuckle. “I knew I wasn’t on that flight, so I was curious too.”
It might have been one of the worst rounds of golf in Dave Roberts’ life.
Playing that day in a group that included actor Brian Baumgartner — better known as Kevin from NBC’s “The Office” — Roberts was alerted of the Ohtani-to-Toronto reports at some point during the round’s back nine.
He, too, assumed there must be some truth to the rumors. Less than a week after being part of the Dodgers’ contingent that met with Ohtani at Dodger Stadium, his golf game imploded at the thought of the team’s top offseason target slipping away.
“I’m better than I showed,” Roberts joked recently. “I was miserable that day.”
The Dodgers manager can laugh now knowing how the drama unfolded. But in the moment, he wasn’t the only member of the organization grappling with the firestorm of uncertainty.
Although president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman had doubts about the accuracy of the reports, he felt nonetheless uneasy with the level of details emerging online — there were also incorrect rumors of a celebratory dinner being planned that
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