April 24-25, 2017 – In his first 11 seasons (2007–16), Joey Votto’s statistics placed him among the elite hitters in the history of Major League Baseball. According to the March 27, 2017 issue of Sports Illustrated, his career “slash line” of .313/.425/.536 (batting average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage) had been equaled or surpassed by only five players: Ruth, Williams, Gehrig, Foxx, and Hornsby. What makes his record even more impressive is that Votto is a native of Toronto, Canada, not exactly a cradle of big-league stars.

Drafted out of high school by Cincinnati in the second round in 2002, the 6-foot-2, 220- pound left-handed hitter became the Reds starting first baseman in 2008. As of 2021, he was a six-time All-Star, a Gold Glove winner in 2011, and the National League’s MVP in 2010, finishing in the top seven five other times. A patient hitter, he led the NL in on-base percentage seven times and in walks five times. He also played for Team Canada in the 2005 Baseball World Cup and the 2013 World Baseball Classic. Votto is a seven-time winner of the Tip O’Neill Award, given by the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame to the player judged to have excelled in individual achievement and team contribution while adhering to baseball’s highest ideals.

A devoted student of the art of hitting, from his early days Votto studied the techniques of past greats in order to improve his game. His primary role model was Ted Williams, whose book, The Science of Hitting, he virtually memorized. Notwithstanding his impressive offensive output, there were those who criticized Votto at times, as others once criticized Williams, for refusing to swing at pitches outside the strike zone, even with runners in scoring position.

Here Votto discusses the fine points of hitting, the challenge of sustaining excellence over time, the “rabbits” he chases, and the changing nature of baseball, maintaining that it is his obligation, and that of all major leaguers, to progress and evolve so as to make the game better.

Transcript

Interviewer: Larry Baldassaro

Date: April 24, 2017

Joey Votto: Okay.

Larry Baldassaro: And talk about growing up in Canada and playing baseball. How’d you get into it? Was that your first love?

Joey Votto: No. I wouldn’t say my first love was baseball. I started playing baseball when I was about six or seven, and I joined the league when I was eight or nine. And yeah, I took to it, but, you know, favorite sport ended up being basketball for most of my pre-professional years. So…

Larry Baldassaro: When did you start baseball?

Joey Votto: When I was six or seven.

Larry Baldassaro: Oh, so-

Joey Votto: Oh, yeah. And then…

Larry Baldassaro: Did you play, like, Little League?

Joey Votto: I played in the league when I was, like, eight and nine. I’m not sure what league. It was, like, a house league.

Larry Baldassaro: High school?

Joey Votto: Some, yeah. High school was very modest in Toronto.

Larry Baldassaro: Really?

Joey Votto: Yeah. Yeah, we played, like, six or seven games, maybe as many as 10 games in a season, as the weather permitted.

Larry Baldassaro: Yeah. Yeah. So, how did it come about that you started playing professionally, and when did you start thinking of it as a possibility?

Joey Votto: When I was, like, 14, 15, 16. I felt like I had a legitimate chance, and so I pursued it, and it ended up paying off, yeah.

Larry Baldassaro: So, in other words- ‘Cause you played so little, you said, before that point. I… Even in high school, you played relatively little.

Joey Votto: I played, also in a league, locally, but in terms of playing a lot of travel ball, I didn’t do that throughout my high school years. I did that for one year on a travel team, but never, ever, like, extensively. Like, just basic, you know, league reenactments.

Larry Baldassaro: So did scouts just start coming around, looking at you when you were in high school, or?

Joey Votto: When I was a senior in high school, yeah.

Larry Baldassaro: Not till you were a senior?

Joey Votto: Yeah. And it was very modest, yeah. Like there wasn’t many scouts for games, so…

Larry Baldassaro: What position were you playing?

Joey Votto: Catcher.

Larry Baldassaro: Catcher?

Joey Votto: Yeah. Catcher, and playing some left, and a little bit of third.

Larry Baldassaro: So, when did you switch to first, or?

Joey Votto: Well, when… I guess when I started playing professional ball, they decided that I probably wasn’t gonna be good enough at, yeah, catching or third base position, so…

Larry Baldassaro: The next step.

Joey Votto: Well, it’s more of a demotion than a step, so, yeah, a step backwards, I suppose.

Larry Baldassaro: So, it was mainly your hitting at that point?

Joey Votto: You don’t know. You know, you don’t know if that’s what they’re seeing or whether or not they’re just trying to make room for people that they deem more, with more potential, right? So…

Larry Baldassaro: So, yeah.

Joey Votto: It ended up working out well. It took me a long time to learn the position and get better at playing first, so…

Larry Baldassaro: Well, I mean, your, you know, your record speaks for itself. You’re an MVP. You’ve had great success. But can you talk about any struggles you might have had along the way, or did you ever doubt that you would make it in the majors?

Joey Votto: I don’t think I doubted that I would make it to the majors. I don’t know if there was a time where I ever had legitimate doubt. I had times in the minor leagues where I was intensely frustrated, where I was confused and not… I didn’t, I wasn’t able to understand why I wasn’t playing as well as I should have. However, there was never… I don’t remember a time where I thought, “Oh, I’m not gonna make it.” I was mostly just trying to… I was mostly just frustrated and trying to navigate the challenges, I was being presented. Does that make sense?

Larry Baldassaro: Yeah. So, that’d be okay. That’s gotta be hard to come out of Canada, with the relatively little experience you had, and really think that, “I can play big league baseball.” I mean, you don’t have a lot of role models behind you, in fact.

Joey Votto: Right. You know, again, the environment was relatively modest compared to, you know, Latin American countries and American baseball. And so were the people that, you know, so were the people that took care of… Or excuse me, that led the way. There’s a few very good players, but for the most part, in my neighborhood, certainly, there wasn’t a lot of examples of players that ended up being really good major league players. So, there’s a few, but not too many. They were on the other part of the country.

Larry Baldassaro: So, the say, even the scout that signed you, did they… Tell you what they saw in you that made them think you could make it?

Joey Votto: I think just left-handed swing and, I could catch, I could throw the ball.

Larry Baldassaro: Well, that’s why you should.

Joey Votto: I can’t… I don’t know. They… It happened so quickly, right? You’d have to look up the scouting report. I think they have it online.

Larry Baldassaro: No, but, uh-

Joey Votto: But yeah.

Larry Baldassaro: So where did Ted Williams come into all this?

Joey Votto: I think when I was a younger player, I’d always had a fascination with the greats, and I tried to understand, you know, what made them sep… What made them different and what made them special and how they honed their craft and… And so, you know, I had a pretty intense interest in it. And I ended up, copying a lot of the characteristics, I think, that I had read about in all the documentary, documented books. So yeah.

Larry Baldassaro: Did you read his book on hitting, The Art of Hitting?

Joey Votto: Yeah. Yeah, I used to carry it around for years. And even to this day, you know, there’s a lot of value to it. I have a good bit of it memorized, so, you know, traveling with it is less necessary. But yeah. No, I remember a good bit of it, so.

Larry Baldassaro: Correct me if I’m wrong, but weren’t you at times criticized for being too much like Ted, too selective and not swinging at pitches just off the plate?

Joey Votto: Yeah, but that’s… You know, having a conversation about people’s opinions is not something I get terribly excited about, you know. I… And it feels like I’d be chasing my tail. So, you know, there’s going to be people that are for or against, just about everybody. There’s examples of that all throughout sport and throughout, you know, the world. So yeah, no, there’s always gonna be an opinion on most players. I think the higher you go up, the more loud the you know, the opposition can be.

Larry Baldassaro: I mean, Ted’s explanation was, “If I start swinging at pitches a little bit off the plate, then I might start swinging at two inches off the plate.” In other words, that was his whole thing, get a good pitch to hit.

Joey Votto: Yeah, I don’t think… I don’t… I find that if you do it long enough and you train yourself long enough that it’s almost like a… I don’t wanna say impossible, ’cause it’s not impossible, but it’s… It becomes a very uncomfortable, very out of the ordinary feeling of expand- expanding, your strengths. So, you know, it’s a, it’s an, it’s a fish out of water sort of thing. And I just couldn’t imagine a guy like him behaving like that because it didn’t fit within his style of play. It’d be like him hitting right-handed. It didn’t really make sense, you know? So…

Larry Baldassaro: You play to your strengths.

Joey Votto: Yeah, but like you create a habit over, over the years and decades that you play, and eventually the habit becomes, I think, ingrained and instinctual, and you can’t do anything about that. You can’t do anything about it except for just be yourself about that.

Larry Baldassaro: What do you think was the most important lesson you learned from reading his book or knowing about him? What do you say to you through his baseball?

Joey Votto: I like to hear when he failed. I like to hear when he struggled and why he struggled and how he overcame it. And I think that was probably the most inspiring thing for me, because he was clearly an all-time great, maybe in the conversation for best player, best hitter of all time. However, he did… He wasn’t without his own struggles. I admired that a lot, and I learned from that, and I think, that gives just about anybody that struggles, hope. You know, if the greatest of all time can’t-

Larry Baldassaro: He was a perfectionist.

Joey Votto: Sure, but he was… I mean, he was highly gifted, right? There’s no doubt about that. Strength, power, quickness. He had to have had just about everything. But I think that yeah, he must have had pretty good practice habits, developed by that natural, like, perfectionist instinct or, you know, personality. So, yeah.

Larry Baldassaro: And he thought that nobody had ever worked harder than he was.

Joey Votto: That’s kind of a subjective sort of thing, but I think he would’ve been great no matter what. I can’t… I certainly can’t speak for him, so I’m… So, lots of guys work hard.

Larry Baldassaro: Yeah, that’s true. They’re not all Ted Williams, right?

Joey Votto: No, they’re not all. So the common variable is he’s Ted, you know? So…

Larry Baldassaro: He would talk about which pitchers were the hardest for him to hit.

Joey Votto: Yeah.

Larry Baldassaro: Does that happen with other certain pitchers?

Joey Votto: Yeah. Yeah. It’s… I’m not gonna… I don’t wanna elaborate too much on it, but-

Larry Baldassaro: Of course.

Joey Votto: But, you know, there’s this… I can almost guarantee… I… Reading his book, he had described facing some of the greats, the Fellers, the… You know, it’s… All-time great pitchers, and he said he had some success. And that makes sense to me because oftentimes, the pitchers with the reputation for being the all-time greats, you… Everybody thinks that they would fall in line with, you know, yeah. There… It’s… A great hitter would still fall in line with the general population, not be able to, not be able to get his. And… But that’s not entirely how I find it works. It’s about matchups, and sometimes there’s some guys that are a little less known, and they’ve got a very quirky style. And oftentimes, I find those guys to be a bit more challenging than, you know, say, the elite pitchers in the game, so.

Larry Baldassaro: You think hitters, tend to raise their own game a little bit when you know you’re facing-

Joey Votto: I think there’s a wide spectrum on that one. You know, I think that sometimes, and I think that sometimes they’re shrinking. You know, I think there can be some shrinking sometimes. So, it all depends on… It depends. I don’t know. I’d like to think all hitters raise their level, though. Yeah. Speaking from a hitter’s perspective, I’d like to see that.

Larry Baldassaro: For you, what’s the best thing about being a Major League Ballplayer?

Joey Votto: I really, I enjoy the challenge. I think that’s the biggest appeal. You know, the… I love that it… The challenge, it always changes. It always asks, the most out of you each day. And because the game is played at such a high level, I find that if you don’t, give it your all, and you don’t, focus on the details, you can go from, you know, the top tier to the bottom tier very quickly. And because it’s such a fine line between, all the different, groups of players, and teams, that effort and discipline and consistency and again, the details end up being cumulative, you know, and end up… You end up… They end up becoming apparent, I think, pretty quickly.

Larry Baldassaro: I mean, it’s a cliché, but the season is so long and to maintain that dedication and excellence for, pardon, a hundred sixty-two games year after year is tough.

Joey Votto: Yeah. I mean, I think so. Hey, Dana. Yeah. Yeah. It’s… Certainly, it’s not without its challenges. I mean, any… And you take a cross-section of anybody over six months, and they’re gonna have their good, bad days, no matter what job they have, right? But, you know, it’s definitely challenging in some ways. Every year is different, but I think ultimately, it’s always, always challenging. It’s always, always going to push… If you accept it, always gonna push you to your limit.

Larry Baldassaro: Were you surprised when you first came up-

Joey Votto: Or your perceived limit. Excuse me. Sorry.

Larry Baldassaro: Were you surprised when you first came up to the big leagues how different and better it was?

Joey Votto: I thought it was easier. I thought it was much easier than I anticipated. But I also played really, like, a lot of the last two years, maybe three years of my minor league career, I played pretty angry. Like, I was not happy I was still in the minor leagues. I thought I was ready somewhere around twenty-one or twenty-two. So I wasn’t happy about that. Fortunately, I got to refine some of my offen… Or my defensive, certainly my offensive and my base running skills. But, you know, I wasn’t happy. So when I came up, I played angry, and I played with a chip on my shoulder, and I played to prove that I should have been here a long time ago. So yeah. So I found it… I didn’t find it difficult at all. I mean, I had success immediately, and I think that was a byproduct of being ready in the minor leagues.

Larry Baldassaro: Interesting. So the flip side, what’s the hardest thing about being a Major League Ballplayer?

Joey Votto: Right. So, okay, so you know, it may not be terribly… I d… May not have found it difficult, but that doesn’t mean I’m getting the most out of myself, right? So, you know, like, a player could play at a certain level, can manage this level, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re getting the most out of themselves, you know? So, it’s a little bit, it’s a little bit different, you know?

Larry Baldassaro: What about the travel and things like that?

Joey Votto: That’s challenging, yeah. Yeah.

Larry Baldassaro: Day after day, really.

Joey Votto: Yeah. Yeah. That can be a challenge, for sure. Yeah.

Larry Baldassaro: So, what has baseball meant to you so far in your life?

Joey Votto: It’s always f… So far, to this point in my life, it’s always felt natural. Meaning, I feel like I’m doing what I… I feel like I’m being challenged, and I’m doing something that I would like to do. So, just that in and of itself is plenty. I s… I’ve enjoyed meeting people and traveling and learning new things and learning about myself and you know, experiencing growth in different ways. But that’s… You know, ultimately, I feel like it’s… I’m grateful to be able to do this for a living.

Larry Baldassaro: So the physical abilities, I mean, have to be pretty high for everybody.

Joey Votto: Yeah. Yeah. So you’re gonna… Yeah. Yeah. Of course. Yeah. But you don’t get here unless you have that.

Larry Baldassaro: Well, then, so what separates the best from the good?

Joey Votto: You know, a lot of people argue it’s mental, but I’m more of the mindset that it’s probably physical, you know? I think there is a mental component to it. I mean, certainly there’s a mental component to it, but, you know, these could The best players in the game are typically the best mo… Best athletes. You know, you look at how… At the younger players right now, and I’m not sure many people could debate that Mike Trout’s not one of the best athletes, that Bryce Harper’s not one of the guys with one of, you know, with the most athletic swings, and Giancarlo Stanton’s not a great athlete, and, you know, co… You know, I’m tr… I’m naming really good play… Manny Cha… I mean, these are all very good athletes. So that’s a variable, certainly. Yeah. Yeah, I think that’s an important component. But eventually, as you get older, I think discipline and consistency and, again, knowing yourself and getting the most of yourself and not being satisfied.

Larry Baldassaro: You know what Yogi Berra said that, “Baseball’s ninety percent mental. The other half is physical.”

Joey Votto: Yeah, I’ve heard that. Yeah. That sounds exactly right. Yeah. Yeah.

Larry Baldassaro: Is there… I mean, you’ve been in the game quite a few years now. You’re still young. Has it changed in the time you’ve been up here?

Joey Votto: Yeah, lots. It’s changed quite a bit. Faster, you know. The… It seems to me like the players are faster, and the outfielders are faster, the infielders are better, smarter. Things are done more efficiently. Defenses are aligned more efficiently. Scouting reports are more efficient. It’s not just a conversation. It’s backed up with data. And then younger. It’s a younger league.

Larry Baldassaro: When you say smarter, what I mean is, again, to feel that all the drills are sound, or in what-

Joey Votto: Just in conjunction with the data. Just being able to make sense of people’s trends and turn that into, scouting reports and being able to counter, you know, your competition.

Larry Baldassaro: Do you use a lot of videos of yourself?

Joey Votto: Yes, I do.

Larry Baldassaro: Yeah?

Joey Votto: Yeah. You find a sweet spot. I think most players find a sweet spot for what’s val… What’s helpful and what isn’t helpful.

Larry Baldassaro: Do you wanna get rid of, or do more of that than you used to, or?

Joey Votto: Probably less. Probably less or the same. You know, how good are there… You know, there’s… Yeah, there’s certainly a lot of help. There’s more charts, and there’s more data, and yeah, I don’t think I do any more than anybody else. Yeah.

Larry Baldassaro: There’s more I wanna ask you, but I wanna keep you more on track.

Joey Votto: Okay.

Larry Baldassaro: Joey Votto, April twenty-fifth, two thousand seventeen.

Joey Votto: Yeah.

Larry Baldassaro: You mentioned yesterday that when you were in the minors, you were kind of frustrated. You thought you should’ve been here. As you were coming through, were there any mentors that helped you get through that whole situation of developing in the minors and getting ready to be here?

Joey Votto: Yeah, sure. Leon Roberts, who is our… Was our hitting coordinator, who now works for the Kansas City Royals, and Freddie Benavides, who’s now the first base coach for us and was formerly the minor league director as well as the infield instructor. Both of them s… Were very supportive, very helpful, but also stayed on me throughout my minor league career.

Larry Baldassaro: So were they all in a sort of a psychological sense or actual batting?

Joey Votto: Yeah. Mostly instruction because there was always something I could improve on. I mean, I work with Freddy daily on… And it’s, you know, it’s been sixteen years we’ve been working together, so there’s always something to learn and improve on.

Larry Baldassaro: Yeah. Really? ‘Cause you’re such a student. I mean, it’s… Not everybody’s like that.

Joey Votto: I’m not sure. I just know that I have to be better. So, yeah.

Larry Baldassaro: So even today, after we should accomplish, you have to be better.

Joey Votto: Yeah.

Larry Baldassaro: Excellent.

Joey Votto: Yeah.

Larry Baldassaro: You’re a mirror image of Ted. I mean, it’s… No, I mean it really. I mean, there have been very few students of the game like him, as you know from his book. Listen, I wanna ask you a difficult question. I mean, you are a student of the game. You’re pretty focused and intense. Do you enjoy playing the game?

Joey Votto: It’s difficult during the season to really let go and have a good time. It’s more of a satisfaction thing. I think that I feel satisfied when I do a good job, when I put in maximum effort, when I’m focused, when I find my sweet spot in terms of the routine of the job. So I do feel good about that. But in terms of just pure joy on the field, I don’t often feel that, no.

Larry Baldassaro: I ask that because I know, I remember Carl Yastrzemski, when he retired, said he looked back, and he sort of wished he had. And Joe Torre told me the same thing.

Joey Votto: Yeah, but that’s not entirely fair to the… For them to say that about themselves because there’s like a… I feel like there’s a balancing act between having a good time and doing your job to the utmost. And the reason why I look up to a guy like Ted Williams and why I, you know, admire and am challenged by a guy like Carl Yastrzemski is because they got the most out of themselves. And I feel like it’s an obligation in a way to the following generations to push the boundaries, to make the game better, to… Then we get… Then I feel like the game evolves. The ga… The pro… You know, not the product, but the sport gets better, and that’s better for the fans. That’s better for the players. This is a better version of the sport than it was when I first entered the league eleven years ago. And that’s… I don’t see that… Excuse me. I don’t envision that stopping. I need to do the same. You know, I need to adjust and evolve as a player.

Larry Baldassaro: So your enjoyment comes from that kind of success of living up to your expectations?

Joey Votto: Mostly, yeah, mostly that. And, like, expectations change on a consistent basis. So one year, expectations are matched in the neg… The preceding year, there’s a new set. You know, things change.

Larry Baldassaro: Do you set specific goals for yourself in a given year?

Joey Votto: Yeah. But they’re mostly related around effort and playing. I, you know, a big goal of mine, and it’s very, very difficult to accomplish, but the players I admire the most are the ones that tend to achieve it’s playing every day, playing, on a consistent basis through all the rigors of a six-month season. So that’s something that stands out to me that I set as a goal for the season. And then if I, you know, if I’m intense and consistent with my intensity and my work, then that’s where the satisfaction comes in.

Larry Baldassaro: Do you think, speaking of intensity over a whole season, do you think anybody will hit four hundred again?

Joey Votto: Yeah, sure. At some point. Yeah, yeah, I do think so. I think that it’d be awfully shortsighted of me to think that something that’s been done in the past will never happen again. I mean, no one would have thought that some, you know, player would hit over sixty-one home runs, and someone hit seventy-three. So yeah, I think that there’s certainly a possibility that a player can hit four hundred.

Larry Baldassaro: Yeah, it’s been a long time.

Joey Votto: Yeah, well, have to go out and do it then.

Larry Baldassaro: Now, you’ve been in the game eleven years now, and the numbers you’ve put up are comparable to some of the all-time greats.

Joey Votto: Mm-hmm.

Larry Baldassaro: My impression is that you’ve been undervalued. What do you say to that?

Joey Votto: Well, I will say that whether too low or too high, a dangerous thing is to buy into your own hype, you know, whether good or bad, whether people are saying you’re not worth something or you’re better than, you know, you’re the next great thing. So, I just try, I really try to disconnect from commentary, disconnect from perception, and focus on the essentials of my job. And I find that has a tendency to yield the best results.

Larry Baldassaro: So if you satisfy yourself, that’s enough?

Joey Votto: Yeah, ’cause I’ve got this… You know, the tough part is, you know, I wanna satisfy myself, but I also have to… You know, the dogs run better with a rabbit, they’re, you know, that, you know, when they chase the rabbit, right? So, you know, I always look at, you know, Mickey Mantle. I always look at his page. I always look at… Ted’s not a good guy to look at, but I look at Mickey, I look at Willie Mays, I look at Hank Aaron, I look at their careers, and I look at their game logs and same usual. I pay attention to guys that I have great admiration and I feel are the, are reaching, I would have to be reaching to get to their markers. And I use those guys as my rabbit, so yeah.

Larry Baldassaro: Pretty fast rabbits.

Joey Votto: Oh, yeah.

Larry Baldassaro: Keeping up pretty well?

Joey Votto: Well, I, it’s good to be challenged, I think, outside of your own set of your own standards, I think.

Larry Baldassaro: So when you step up to the plate, are you a hitter who’s looking for a certain pitch, or do you just adjust to whatever that pitcher’s trying to throw?

Joey Votto: Every situation’s different, and I think that’s, part of the responsibility as a hitter. You know, if a pitcher, you know, has a particular style that leads to, you know, more swings and misses or less swings and misses, more fly balls, more ground balls, eh, right. You know, if he’s gonna just keep throwing breaking balls to you always have to adjust and be willing to change your game. And I think that’s the most important part, most important thing a hitter can develop, the ability to have a different club for every single lie, a different swing for every single situation, every single pitch style, you know. And I think that’s when you know you’ve got, you can handle, just about everybody in the game.

Larry Baldassaro: So, I mean, adjusting your swing depending on type of pitcher?

Joey Votto: Good example is before Ted Williams passed away, they asked him about Randy Johnson. And he said, they said, “Well, what would you do with Randy Johnson?” And he the story goes, he closed his eyes, he said, “I’ve already thought about it. Hit a base hit up the middle.” And to me, that tells me that he w… He can envision facing him, he can see what the ball looks like coming in. He knows he has a limited set of options facing a guy like Randy Johnson. He knows that he doesn’t wanna get burnt on a slider, and he knows he doesn’t… You know, he’s gotta be aware of the ball at his face or whatever, you know. He… Anyways, but he’s saying to me, “This is the swing I have to take. That’s what a good swing against him looks like.” And to me, that tells me that a guy who is known as a pull hitter, known as a power-hitting, a fly ball line drive-hitting pull hitter is saying to me, “I’ve gotta use a different swing.” And it’s the same thing, I think, that players in the league, and I’ll speak for myself, I’ve tried to develop. To have options against every single guy. You have to have… To me, you have to have an option, no matter if he’s a lower-tier pitcher or Clayton Kershaw. You have to have an answer for everybody, like yourself.

Larry Baldassaro: So that suggests that… I mean, you obv… You study pitchers, and that suggests somebody you haven’t seen before is gonna be a little more difficult, perhaps, ’cause you-

Joey Votto: Not necessarily. A lot of the video stuff can really help. And some of that can be some of that can be… I can watch a video and more or less predict what it’s gonna look like. Yeah. Similar to what Ted said.

Larry Baldassaro: And do, or have a two-strike swing? I mean-

Joey Votto: Oh, yeah. Yeah, that’s a big priority for me. You know, I put the ball in play with two strikes and being, keep being a really competent two-strike hitter is probably the biggest priority for me over the last few years of my career. The last couple years that I’ve played, yeah.

Larry Baldassaro: Now, you’re kind of a rarity these days. You’ve been with one club since you were drafted. Is that important to you to-

Joey Votto: Certainly.

Larry Baldassaro: To stick with the-

Joey Votto: Yes.

Larry Baldassaro: Cincinnati?

Joey Votto: Yeah, very much so. You see all kinds of team… No, please sit. I’m just, you know, changing pants. You see all kinds of teams, go through rough spells and you know, go through rough spells and have hot stretches. And no matter the market, nobody’s immune to it. So to me, I’m looking forward to having, winning, consistent winning baseball here and being able to do it in this uniform. And to me, you know, I’m starting to find myself cheer for laundry too. You know, the old saying, cheer- You know, cheer for the player, cheer for laundry.

Larry Baldassaro: Same child once.

Joey Votto: I feel very, very much like that. You know, Yeah, I’m a Reds fan. You know, I’m starting to think about, the teams I should cheer for in professional sports, and I don’t think I have one anymore except for the Reds, you know, so.

Larry Baldassaro: Do you spend the off season in Ohio or Cincinnati?

Joey Votto: Some time. I have a home there. And, you know, it requires upkeep, and it’s a good place to get away. But, you know, ultimately, being in the city, I get recognized, It’s nice to get away from that sort of attention.

Larry Baldassaro: I assume you still have family in Canada, Toronto?

Joey Votto: Oh, yeah. Yeah. My mom and my brothers. Yeah, I get to see them.

Larry Baldassaro: Just to go back briefly, the first question I asked you yesterday, you really have no sense of when your relatives first came from Italy or where they were from?

Joey Votto: I wanna say it’s at least two generations. I know it’s… I know that it’s not my grandparents.

Larry Baldassaro: So before that..

Joey Votto: Yeah. Yeah.

Larry Baldassaro: It goes back a ways.

Joey Votto: Yeah, it does. It does. But I definitely know I’ve got Italian. I can tell you that.