‘The Franchise: Toronto Blue Jays’ explores baseball team’s 48-year history

Blue Jays outfielder Jesse Barfield dives safely back to first base as the ball gets away from Texas Rangers first baseman Peter O'Brien in a game at Exhibition Stadium in Toronto on Saturday, Aug. 3, 1985. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Mike Blake

TORONTO — Toronto Blue Jays brass used all the bells and whistles when they tried to land two-way superstar Shohei Ohtani in the fall of 2023.

The once-in-a-lifetime pursuit of the Japanese free agent, as author Keegan Matheson writes in his new book, “The Franchise: Toronto Blue Jays,” included taking Ohtani, his agent and interpreter at the time on a tour of the team’s renovated player development complex, complete with a few special touches.

Three lockers in the clubhouse were set aside for Ohtani, along with jerseys, gear, hats, bags and accessories. It was all part of an elaborate effort to sell him on the team.

An impressed Ohtani — whose camp wanted total secrecy throughout the process — walked out of the Dunedin, Fla., facility with bags of team gear and a Blue Jays hat on his head, Matheson writes.

Ohtani stopped to take pictures with his interpreter, who was also sporting some Toronto kit. The superstar’s dog, “Decoy,” came running out to join them in a Canadian dog jacket the Blue Jays had bought for him.

“I think that the presentation they gave Ohtani was incredibly impressive and they were not the No. 2 team just to be strung along and used as the other person at the bargaining table,” said Matheson. “They were No. 2 because they almost signed him.”

The behind-the-scenes colour and details from Matheson’s interviews and descriptions bring an intriguing, memorable and downright surreal chapter in the team’s near half-century history to life.

Ohtani would eventually sign a 10-year, US$700-million deal with the Los Angeles Dodgers. It was a big blow for Canada’s lone big-league team and its countrywide contingent of supporters.

The Blue Jays would eventually sign a big fish of their own, locking up star first baseman Vladimir Guerrero Jr. to a 14-year extension last April worth a team record $500 million. The megadeal helped soothe any lingering pain from the Ohtani situation and also showed the franchise was willing to spend big in an effort to be a consistent contender.

But that Ohtani off-season — from a bizarre Zoom call with general manager Ross Atkins to the erroneous report that Ohtani had chosen the Blue Jays and was on a plane to Toronto — was the “strangest experience” Matheson expects to have as a reporter.

“The game that went into it was really fascinating,” Matheson said in a recent interview. “Trying to operate in secrecy in a world where we want to know everything that’s going on with your favourite team and with your favourite player.

“This was more of a TV drama and the amount of work that went into keeping it secret fascinates me.”

The book also explores the team’s early days, the playoff successes in the early 1990s, the near-misses in the previous decade, and many of the players — on and off the field — who made it all happen.

The stories and anecdotes are not always the obvious ones.

From players sipping chicken noodle soup at a frigid Exhibition Stadium, to amusing tales of manager-athlete dynamics, to the homecoming after a 670-day break between home games due to COVID-19, Matheson touches all the bases.

“Instead of asking a pitcher why he lost or asking someone why they struck out three times, this was an opportunity to ask someone, ‘Hey, tell me about the best days of your life,’” said Matheson, who covers the team for MLB.com.

“Tell me about that memory that everyone always asks you about at the bar, at golf tournaments and coffee shops.”

“The Franchise: Toronto Blue Jays,” a 302-page book published by Triumph Books, is available now at a retail price of $38.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 11, 2025.

Gregory Strong, The Canadian Press