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<\/p>\n\u201cHe is (a) very unique person,\u201d said Matthew Rodriguez, a Dodgers supporter who came to Toronto from New Jersey for Game 1. \u201cI think his character is unmatched, the humbleness, the respect that he has for other people, but then also the baseball player that he is.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t<\/p>\n
Rodriguez said he follows the Dodgers and his favourite player wherever they go. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe try to see Ohtani whenever he\u2019s around. We try to make an effort to go and see him whenever,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Jeremiah Madayag, an Ohtani and Dodgers fan who was born and raised in Toronto, said while he loves the Blue Jays, he believes Ohtani is \u201cbigger than baseball.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said he travelled all the way to Japan in the spring to watch him play in the Tokyo Series, calling the experience \u201cincredible.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cOhtani has been like a big inspiration,\u201d Madayag said amid deafening cheers at the Rogers Centre. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s one of a kind. I can\u2019t say anything else,\u201d he said, adding that Ohtani is someone who Asian kids can look up to and he hopes the athlete will be a model for his own future children.<\/p>\n
Even though Ohtani\u2019s home run in Game 1 wasn\u2019t enough against the Jays\u2019 offence, the Dodgers rallied to win Saturday\u2019s Game 2 in Toronto and Monday\u2019s Game 3 at their home stadium in L.A., taking a 2-1 lead in the best-of-seven matchup.<\/p>\n
Ohtani had a historic performance Monday as he homered twice and tied a 119-year-old major-league record with four extra-base hits, putting on yet another impressive post-season show.<\/p>\n
After his four-hit barrage in the first seven innings, Ohtani drew five consecutive walks in an epic 18-inning World Series game, making him the first major-leaguer in 83 years to reach base nine times in any game, let alone the post-season.<\/p>\n
Before that, he took the chants directed at him in Toronto in stride. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a really great chant, and my wife really appreciated it,\u201d he said with a smile through a translator following the Dodgers\u2019 workout on Sunday. <\/p>\n
Toronto is home to many Ohtani fans, but few might match the enthusiasm of David Pollard, a former teacher who formed a fan club in hopes of encouraging the player to move to Toronto when the Jays first attempted to recruit him in 2018. <\/p>\n
Pollard said he continued to run the Ohtani Canada Instagram account even though Ohtani chose another L.A. team at the time, the Los Angeles Angels, over the Jays. The account, which posts updates about the superstar, has more than 61,000 followers.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we had just Ohtani Canada fans, we would fill the stadium and not have enough room for everyone. It\u2019s pretty phenomenal,\u201d he said in a phone interview. \u201cWhy are we the fastest growing fan clubs? It\u2019s because we focus on the goodness of the man and whenever we see it, we post it.\u201d <\/p>\n
Pollard said he has met Ohtani twice. He once gave him a pair of Canadian mittens, and the second time they acknowledged each other in passing, he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe is a humble celebrity in the modern world,\u201d he said of the player. <\/p>\n
Pollard, a faculty adviser at the private Tyndale University, said he and members of the fan club who are mostly educators are now using Ohtani as an example when they teach kids about the importance of character. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe looked at Ohtani and thought, \u2018Wow, we\u2019ve been handed this gift. This man is all about character,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
That character and endurance is what kept Dodgers supporters confident at the beginning of the World Series. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe great ones show up when they need to,\u201d Dodgers fan Shane Murdoch said as his friends trolled him with chants of \u201cDaaaa Dodgers lose\u201d at the end of Game 1. <\/p>\n
Jessie Brodhagen, who came to the game from Arizona with his father-in-law, said he has been an Ohtani fan since he played for the Los Angeles Angels.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s just an all-around ballplayer, hard worker, puts everything into it and he\u2019s the best in baseball,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 28, 2025.<\/p>\n
\u2013With files from The Associated Press<\/p>\n
Sharif Hassan, The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cHe is (a) very unique person,\u201d said Matthew Rodriguez, a Dodgers supporter who came to Toronto from New…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":247159,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,591,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-247158","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247158\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/247159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}