RED-BLOODED
Joey Votto is still apologizing for a slip of the tongue, which shows just how Canadian the Lou Marsh winner is.
Joey Votto has explained and explained, apologized and apologized. Then explained and apologized some more.
He’s willing to do it all some more, still trying to right the wrong, rewrite the script he awkwardly wrote for himself earlier this year when he was quoted on a May podcast saying “I don’t care almost at all about Canadian baseball.”
Votto was commenting, rather awkwardly, about Canadianborn James Paxton’s no-hitter against the Blue Jays, and it all came out terribly wrong.
“I didn’t mean what I said in that podcast,” he said in a recent interview. “Everybody who knows me knows it was a mistake. That’s not how I live my life.”
That it came just five months after Votto was named the winner of the Lou Marsh Award as Canada’s athlete of the year for 2017 just made it worse, made him seem to his critics ungrateful, intent on turning his back on the country of his birth.
“Some people might have taken it as me writing off my people, and the reaction was I was being unpatriotic,” he said. “I really did my very best to apologize and make things right.”
As Votto explains it, his comments did come from a certain place within his psyche, but they just came out the wrong way. It’s been a long time since his days as a high schooler at Richview Collegiate in Etobicoke, and keeping the connection to his hometown while playing professional baseball in Dayton, Sarasota, Chattanooga, Louisville and finally Cincinnati has been a challenge.
“Playing in the Midwest, playing in a completely different division, very rarely seeing the Blue Jays, rarely showing up in Toronto or on Canadian television, I do wish I could more often share my career with Canadian sports fans,” he said.
What Votto says he was trying to express was the distance he often feels from Canada and Canadian baseball.
“I left home when I was 18, and it feels like I’ve been in completely different world in a way,” he said. “I don’t feel forgotten at all. But playing for Cincinnati, it’s been a lean stretch, baseball’s not a huge priority compared to the other major Canadian sports, so at times I do wish I had a little more of a connection to the people in Canada. I do wish I would have a larger group of people to share this honour with.
“(In the podcast) they were asking me a question about something that really I’m not connected to, and that was the answer that came up at the time.
“I made the mistake. At times in life you make mistakes, and I certainly learned from that one. I don’t have many regrets in my career. I genuinely felt regretful about being so reckless with my words. I felt awful. I lost sleep.”
The furor has died down, and the 34-year-old first baseman has essentially gone back to doing what he does best, although not quite as well as last season. The average is hovering around .300, the on-base percentage is good, and only Bryce Harper and Mike Trout have walked more.
At the same time, the power numbers are down, there’s not much protection for him in the Reds lineup, and Cincinnati has the fewest wins in the National League.
“When you play ball, there are so many individual components to the game, quite a few ways to evaluate your performance,” he said. “I’m not happy with how I’ve played so far this year from a statistical standpoint. But my effort’s been strong, I’ve been focused and steady every day, and I feel like I’m going to put together a good stretch of ball.
“From a team perspective, most definitely it’s been frustrating. I’ve spoken on that quite a few times. I’m looking forward to playing on a winning club here in the near future. I’m always optimistic for that, hoping it happens sooner than later.”
He said the 2017 Lou Marsh Award, which he received in a private ceremony on Wednesday in Cincinnati while wearing a green Humboldt Strong T-shirt, has actually made a bigger impact on him than the first time he won it in 2010.
“It isn’t until get a little perspective you realize how remarkable this sort of achievement is, how much of an honour it is,” he said. “The first one came in a little bit of a whirlwind. I received several awards that year in 2010. You’re young, you don’t realize whether it’s the Hank Aaron Award or the Lou Marsh Award or even the most valuable player, you don’t realize how special they can be.
“This (Lou Marsh) felt really good. When I got it I was stoked because there are so many fantastic Canadian athletes out there.”
Votto said he’s planning to buy a house in Toronto in the “not too distant future” after renting an apartment for several years at College and Bathurst.
“I think I’m going to trend toward some trees and a park as I get older,” he laughed.
While his baseball season may not have been wonderful so far, Votto did get some recognition earlier this year from two unexpected sources. On the Netflix show My Guest Needs No Introduction, famed comedians Jerry Seinfeld and David Letterman swapped stories about their interactions with Votto.
Votto apparently thanked Letterman from the on-deck circle for attending a Reds game, and said, “Hey Jerry, how you doing?” when he noticed Seinfeld in the stands for a Reds game against the Dodgers in Los Angeles.
“I just leapt out of my skin, I was so excited” said Seinfeld. “Joey Votto knows who I am!!”
Votto said he was raised on Seinfeld and “attended the church of David Letterman on a daily basis.” When he heard about the TV show exchange between Letterman and Seinfeld, he showed a sense of humour of his own.
“Unfortunately Jerry and David were incorrect in their assumptions that I was speaking directly to them,” Votto told C. Trent Rosecrans of The Athletic. “David was wearing dark glasses and a sportcoat. I thought he was my limo driver and I wanted to inform him that I was nearly done playing and I wanted him to pull the limo around so I could beat the traffic.
“When I waved to Jerry, he was actually sitting in front of my longtime friend Jerry Cartwright. We had plans to go to Skyburger after the game. I wanted to confirm but Seinfeld got in the way.”
Not bad. But maybe Votto shouldn’t give up the day job just yet.
When he lets his bat do the talking, after all, he never has to apologize.