TORONTO - Japanese baseball superstar Shohei Ohtani will land in Toronto with the Los Angeles Dodgers as the World Series kicks off on Friday, but his fans in Canada say they will still cheer for the Blue Jays.

Christine Takasaki, a program co-ordinator at the Japanese Canadian Culture Centre in Toronto, says she has respect for what Ohtani has achieved as a player, but she has been a Blue Jays fan almost her entire life – and that's not going to change.

The Blue Jays were strong contenders to sign Ohtani in free agency before he agreed to a record US$700-million, 10-year contract with the Dodgers in 2023.

Speculation that Ohtani was about to sign with the Jays hit feverish levels in December of that year amid reports that he was on a Toronto-bound private jet, which social media users

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