"There were times I felt more confident," Friedman said. "And there were times I felt extremely low."

Some of his players were more resigned.

While playing winter ball in Venezuela, infielder Miguel Rojas took the reports as truth. "I fell for that one for sure," he said. "I definitely felt like he wasn't gonna come to us."

Back in L.A., reliever Joe Kelly worried his personal offer to Ohtani — to give up his No. 17 jersey number if Ohtani signed with the Dodgers — would go unfulfilled.

"It's probably one of those weirder [free-agent situations], right?" Kelly said. "The internet is so fast, you can't ever know something for sure until it's done."

Not every Dodger was locked in on the ever-changing developments. Freddie Freeman only heard about the situation once his wife, Chelsea, alerted him to it. Mookie Betts apparently missed the episode entirely, wearing a puzzled expression when asked about the flight this week.

"I have no idea," Betts said. "I paid zero attention to all that."

By now, those who rode the emotional rollercoaster have put the memory far into the rear-view mirror.

"I don't really give it too much mind," Roberts quipped.

And ahead of this week's trip to Toronto, no one seemed worried about the reception that might await Ohtani from Blue Jays fans — who were duped not by the two-way star himself, but by inaccurate information amplified through an online rumor mill.

"It's not like he disrespected the fan base at all," Roberts said. "He entertained them and had nice things to say about them. So I expect him to be just fine."

"It's not his fault," Freeman said, "that the media was wrong."

Roughly 24 hours after the Ohtani-less flight touched down, the free agent made his actual choice official on Instagram on Dec. 9, announcing his decision to sign with the Dodgers.

In the Southland, the news was met with elation and relief.

"To get that call was incredible," Friedman said at Ohtani's introductory news conference. "And making the calls to our guys who put in so much time and energy was awesome."

Back in Toronto, meanwhile, the doubts that had risen from the debunked reports the day prior were only disappointingly confirmed.

"It really did feel like the Blue Jays were in the mix for him, which alone was huge," said Blake Murphy, an analyst and broadcaster for Sportsnet, the Canadian television network and Blue Jays broadcast partner. "And then, yeah, that Saturday, late afternoon, the alert comes that he's going to the Dodgers."

As Murphy scrambled to get on the air that day — short of interrupting a live Maple Leafs game, he said, Sportsnet had plans for live TV coverage as soon as Ohtani made his choice — he recalled the reaction of most Blue Jays fans falling into one of two camps.

There were the realists, Murphy said, who thought, "Oh man, that would have been really, really cool. That's disappointing."

And then there were the rationalizers, a vocal minority who claimed the Blue Jays "were never in it anyways," and that the club was "just used as leverage" for Ohtani's record-breaking contract in L.A. (In reality, Ohtani had spelled out similar contract terms to each of the finalists he was considering.)

There was one shared frustration among Blue Jays faithful, stemming from the team's inability to pivot over the remainder of the offseason.

Without Ohtani, the team's only notable additions were pitcher Yariel Rodriguez, a Cuban right-hander who'd been playing in Japan; infielder Isiah Kiner-Falefa, whose $15 million signing was panned by many pundits as an overpay by the team's front office; and former Dodgers favorite Justin Turner, whose .324 batting average heading into this weekend has made him one of the few offensive bright spots for the Blue Jays.

"It turns out, it was kind of a Shohei or bust offseason," Murphy said of the Blue Jays, who enter the weekend 13-13 and tied for last in the American League East. "It was so underwhelming compared to the idea of Shohei. It was a weird cycle."

Both Osorio and Murphy expect Ohtani to receive mostly cheers during this weekend's series.

"Nice Canadians, you know?" Osorio said jokingly.

Added Murphy: "He might get a couple strays that are more like proxy boos. But they'll be booing what didn't happen in free agency."

Reflecting on the situation this week, Osorio chalked it up as "typical Toronto fashion with our sports teams," comparing the disappointment to that of the Maple Leafs' recent postseason failures.

"It was one of those things where, I was sitting around with a friend the next day, saying 'Remember yesterday, when we thought Ohtani was coming here? That was awesome,'" Osorio recounted, longingly.

Indeed, for Blue Jays fans it would have been — had only the tweets about the flight actually been true.

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