Schneider Jokes About Ohtani’s “Theft”
Toronto Blue Jays manager John Schneider humorously expressed his desire to get back a cap that Shohei Ohtani, now a Los Angeles Dodgers player, took after a meeting in December 2023. Ohtani, after signing a 700 million dollar contract for 10 years with the Dodgers, met with the Blue Jays executives on December 4, 2023 at the team’s spring training facilities in Dunedin, Florida. Ohtani, who will be the first batter in the World Series, will play against the Blue Jays at the Rogers Centre on Friday night. This comes after his outstanding performance at the plate and on the mound during the National League Championship Series.Schneider also joked about the jacket of Decoy, Ohtani’s dog, a Nederlandse kooikerhondje. “It’s like, give us our stuff back already,” he added. Ohtani responded with a smile when asked about the cap: “It’s in my garage,” he said through an interpreter. Ohtani contributed to the Dodgers winning the title last year, batting .310 with 54 home runs, 130 RBIs, and 59 stolen bases. This season, returning to pitching in a limited role after elbow surgery, he batted .282 with 55 home runs, 102 RBIs, and 20 stolen bases, while having a 1-1 record with a 2.87 ERA in 14 starts, striking out 62 in 47 innings. Last Friday, he hit three home runs while pitching six scoreless innings and striking out 10 against Milwaukee, completing a four-game sweep in the National League Championship Series. Without Ohtani, the Blue Jays were able to offer first baseman Vladimir Guerrero Jr. a contract of $500 million for 14 years, which will begin next year, and helped Toronto reach the World Series for the first time since 1993.I hope you brought your cap, the Blue Jay’s cap that he took from us at our meeting. I hope he brought it back, finally.
John Schneider
Schneider isn’t sure how close the Blue Jays were to signing Ohtani. “When we met with him, you felt good and you felt good about the comments he made about our organization and the opportunity here. But you never really know what a player is feeling in free agency, and there are a lot of things that have to align for them personally, too, so you can’t really think about the what-ifs. You think about the 26 players we have,” he concluded.He’s a great player. But apart from that, I think we have a great team and an incredible cast of characters and players. I think things worked out as they should.
John Schneider
