Bat in hand, Joey Votto could make your jaw drop. He did so not by one-off displays of power. It was more subtle, more intricate. It wasn’t a motorcyclist jumping over a row of RVs. It was more like an aerialist, leaping and pirouetting on the equivalent of a string high above us. How does he do that?
One day in 2012 he made my jaw drop without a bat in his hands. He told me he had not pulled a foul ball into the stands since his rookie year of 2007. What?! And it wasn’t until a year later, on May 20, 2013, on a cutter from Shaun Marcum of the New York Mets at Citi Field, that he did it a second time. Six years without pulling a foul into the stands? Who could have a swing so pure to do that? Only Votto.
