The Shohei Ohtani sweepstakes came to an end on Dec. 9 when the two-way superstar announced he would be signing with the Los Angeles Dodgers.
The team had remained the favorites throughout his free agency, but they weren’t the only team to make a genuine offer for Ohtani.
The Toronto Blue Jays reportedly made a competitive offer that was around the same ballpark (pun slightly intended) figures as the Dodgers. Fast forward to flight speculations and erroneous reports, and the ultimate destination appeared to be the right one.
Legendary sports broadcaster Bob Costas stopped by Foul Territory recently to discuss the historic signing and ultimately why Ohtani didn’t end up in Toronto and how he compared to the greatest of all time.
“In fairness of Toronto, had he gone to the Blue Jays, he would have become a national figure because they’re the only team in Canada, so there’s that,” Costas said. “And they have a good history, they’ve won a couple of World Series, they try to build their team, they have very good players past and present — and a good fanbase, but if you’re talking about baseball overall — and Ohtani at this point is about as close to what Michael Jordan was — baseball will never get to that level, at least in the foreseeable future, but Michael Jordan was an asset to the NBA, not just to the Chicago Bulls.”
Bob Costas weighs in on why Ohtani set himself up for success by choosing the @Dodgers
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— Foul Territory (@FoulTerritoryTV) December 14, 2023
Ohtani has the ability to make someone who couldn’t care less about baseball stop what they’re doing to turn on the TV and watch an at-bat or a no-hit bid with ease.
Jordan’s impact on the Bulls created an entire economy boom.
“So if you try to maximize that asset, public fascination where even casual fans want to tune in for it, you want to maximize that, the Dodgers are a better place than Toronto,” Costas added. “Despite their October disappointments, they’re the best team over the last decade record-wise, they’ve won the division 10 out of 11 times. The one time they didn’t they won 106 games, so this is the best chance for Ohtani to be in a very big market with all kinds of marketing possibilities, surrounded by Hollywood — who know what comes out of that and to get to the postseason, and maybe — fingers crossed — all the way to the World Series.”
Ohtani’s $700-million, 10 deal is believed to be the biggest in sports history. While he won’t be pitching this season after undergoing an arm procedure in September, his designated hitting presence remains a game-changer.
So much so the late Kobe Bryant was a part of the recruiting process.
The Dodgers showed a six-year-old video of the NBA legend asking Ohtani to sign with the Dodgers. Ohtani knew it was a big deal to have Kobe make such a request.
