TSN has a good story http://www.tsn.ca/mlb/story/?id=342402.   And http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2010/11/reds-will-discuss-long-term-deal-with-votto.html makes it interesting.   Now, all I hope is that he becomes a Blue Jay but http://mlbcontracts.blogspot.com/2005/01/cincinnati-reds_24.html doesn't make it seem likely.

When I was fifteen I made Bob Smythe's travel/development baseball team, the Toronto Hawks. Bob ran his operation out of building in Etobiicoke, which I now believe is owned by Pro Teach. We had two set practices a week during the winter and we could drop in any time we wanted to take BP or just to listen to the gospel of Bob. While Joey wasn't on our team, he would work out with Bob what seemed to be everyday. I remember a couple things about Joey. Even at eighteen he seemed very business like in his approach to his workouts, he was extremely nice, and he worked hard. He had a routine that seemed to most of us to be exhausting. He would hit, swing a jackhammer against a tire, hit, swing a jackhammer against a tire, hit some more, do some calisthenics, hit some more, and if a pitcher needed a bullpen he would always volunteer. If this wasn't enough, he would run sprints for what seemed to be hours. After all this, he would sit down with Bob and talk baseball. Bob would spend hours lecturing Joey about his elbow placement or his swing path. You could see Joey take it all in, it was something else watching what happened when talent mixed with hard-work and superior tutelage could produce. For all us, Joey was someone we looked up to, someone who went about his business the right way. I know a couple of guys on those teams went on to play college or pro ball. Kyle Gilligan was one of them. It's almost surreal that that guy is now an MVP. I think he stands as an example for young Canadian ball players that the right work ethic and instruction goes a long way.

I remember seeing Joey three years later in Ward and Patch, he was buying some baseballs. At that time he was in Low-A. I didn't think he'd recognize me as we had never really talked back at the facility. But he remembered who I was and asked me how I was doing and where I was playing. It was a nice gesture and he signed a ball for the guy behind the counter.

Congratulations!

Going the whole season without hitting an infield fly is simply incredible.

Thanks sam, good to hear.  The Votto story is a good one on many different levels.

Congrats Joey.  Would love to see you in Toronto some day.

That's a wonderful story, Sam, and very inspirational. Thanks for sharing it. Reveals a lot about the making of a superstar -- they're not just born that way. (By the way, was it a jackhammer or a sledge hammer that he was swinging against a tire?)

....Votto is just the third Canadian-born MVP...


Not sure if we should look at it as "just" the third. Three Canadian MVPs in three decades is pretty good, isn't it? As a percentage of the Canadian players in MLB, or even on a per capita basis in comparison to some other countries, it's not too bad, is it? (Although I assume the Dominican might be doing better on a per-capita count.)

I sure hope it's a jackhammer. Just to maintain the awesome mental image I have of a young Joey Votto swinging a freaking jackhammer against a tire!

But realistically... probably a sledgehammer.

Still, great story. Thanks for sharing.

CF ... um, what?

Let me elaborate. Since 1997, there have been 28 MVP trophies awarded in the two leagues, and Canadians won 3 of them. That's about 11 per cent of the MVP trophies. But the population of the entire baseball-playing world -- North America, Central America, some of South America, Japan, Korea, Taiwan -- is about 600 to 700 million. Canada's population is just 5 per cent of the world baseball-playing population. So it could be argued that Canada's proportion of the MVPs is twice as big as its population would warrant. You could argue that Japanese and Korean players tend to play in their own leagues rather than MLB, but I'm not sure how many of those players are good enough for MLB. Anyway I think Canada is punching above its demogaphic weight in the MVP competition since 1997.

Votto and Pujols is pretty much a dead heat as far as I can tell, which makes 31 first place votes to 1 seem... odd. One assumes there was a very strong "I'm just bored with voting for Pujols" factor at work.

Three Canadian MVPs in three decades is pretty good, isn't it?

And it's all because they don't let me vote! (Mike Piazza in 1997, Derek Jeter in 2006. Sorry...)

It wouldn't be unreasonable to have "contributions to a winning club" as a tiebreaker between absolutely evenly matched MVP candidates.

Oh, I don't mind Votto winning. If you're flipping a coin, it's nice to see tails come up once in a while. But no one thinks Cincinnati finished five games ahead of St.Louis because they had an edge at first base. Swap Votto for Pujols and nothing really changes at all. Is Votto the MVP because the Cardinals were trotting Skip Schumaker and Brendan Ryan out there every day?

It's a lot more plausible than all those Shannon Stewart votes of five years ago. There has been a "winning team bonus" as long as there has been MVP voting, as far as I can tell.

It looks like that Joe Pawlikowski, for fun, replaced UZR with DRS in Fangraphs' WAR formula and came up with a new AL leader in WAR - Jose Bautista.

In no surprise, Josh Hamilton has won the AL MVP award.

Jose Bautista finished 4th, also behind Miguel Cabrera and Robinson Cano. Those four players were the only ones named on every ballot. Bautista picked up 1 first-place vote.

China Fan, I knew full well what you meant. I was just ironically (and apparently unclearly) pointing out that the lead doesn't say that (any more and you can't prove it ever did, so there.)  8-P

Sorry it was a sledgehammer. I remember trying to swing it once and nearly falling over.

Mick, don't succumb to pressure from jingoistic Canadians! Just ignore us!