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simmonssteve steve simmons
Votto gets 31 of 32 first place votes. He's a landslide MVP. Great day for Canadian baseball and the kid from Etobicoke.

lijon912 wrote:Good news for the canadian, I still think Hamilton deserves to win even though he missed time, he was such a feared batter and also did anyone predict the rangers to make the WS?

Rhettmatic wrote:Good news!

simmonssteve steve simmons
Votto gets 31 of 32 first place votes. He's a landslide MVP. Great day for Canadian baseball and the kid from Etobicoke.

Hoopstarr wrote:ShiDavidi - "Come on TSN. Joey Votto is just third Canadian ever to win MVP and he isn't lead on SportsCentre? Really?"

Wow. I hate hockey.

satyr9 wrote:

Hoopstarr wrote:ShiDavidi - "Come on TSN. Joey Votto is just third Canadian ever to win MVP and he isn't lead on SportsCentre? Really?"

Wow. I hate hockey.

I gave up watching sportscentre or the sportsnet show so long ago. It's too painful when you want to hear coverage of something you are interested in and they lead with 10 hockey packages, then the CFL, then some follow up Leaf interviews, and then in the last 3 minutes before they replay those 10 hockey highlight reels you have to cross your fingers they don't forget to let you know what they think of the actual important sports stories of the day. Thank god for the internet is all I can say.

OldNo7 wrote:I wish he didnt come across as an **** in all of his interviews. And I wish I didnt know someone who played with him for the Canadian team awhile back that said he was an ****. It would make me like him more. He definitely mashed his way to this one and earned it though.

Hoopstarr wrote:

OldNo7 wrote:I wish he didnt come across as an **** in all of his interviews. And I wish I didnt know someone who played with him for the Canadian team awhile back that said he was an ****. It would make me like him more. He definitely mashed his way to this one and earned it though.

This is first I've heard of this. Explain how he comes off like that.

"I was shocked, surprised," by the margin, said Votto. "Really surprised. I have no other words to use other than surprised.

"I didn't think it would be so conclusive."

The key for the voting, which was conducted before the playoffs, was that Votto's team won a division title, even though the Reds were swept in the playoffs by the Philadelphia Phillies as Votto had only one hit in three games. Pujols' and Gonzalez's teams did not make the postseason.

When Pujols' Cardinals team won a division title last year and he was the MVP, the voting was very similar to this year's. Pujols, in fact, garnered every first-place vote then.

But when the Cardinals didn't make the playoffs in 2008 and Pujols won the MVP, the voting was much closer. Pujols got only 18 of 32 first-place votes with Ryan Howard of Philadelphia, which won the World Series, garnering 12 first-place votes.

In a statement Monday, Pujols said, "I would like to offer my sincere congratulations to Joey on winning the National League MVP Award. Joey is an outstanding young player that works extremely hard both on and off the field and I'm proud to welcome him to the family."

The 27-year-old Votto, a Toronto native who hit .324 with 37 homers and 113 runs batted in, ended Pujols' streak of two consecutive MVPs and kept Pujols from becoming the only player other than Barry Bonds to win four MVPs.

But Votto, speaking from his Sarasota, Fla., home in a conference call with reporters, said he had a hard time believing the vote was so one-sided, especially in relation to Pujols, who Votto said is "one of the greatest hitters of all time."

Votto said he paid little or no attention to statistics during the season but admitted he had spent time looking at the numbers in the offseason.

"I said, 'Holy cow. (Pujols) beat me in a lot of them.' He beat me in runs, RBIs and home runs and a couple others. I had a better batting average (.324 to .312) but we all kind of know that that's an over-rated statistic," said Votto.

"I was a pretty efficient player. I think I had the highest on-base percentage in baseball (.424) and led tine National League in slugging. I did some good things, but most important, we won.

"It's pretty ... awesome to have beaten Albert Pujols for the MVP."

Votto, in fact, scarcely could hide his admiration for Pujols, who called the former aside for a batting cage talk well before Votto became a star.

"For him to give me the time of day and talk about defense and ways to improve my game was very generous of him," said Votto. "He certainly didn't have to do that.

"I'd be lying if I said I didn't want to steal that Gold Glove or Silver Slugger (award) from him, but that was really nice of him."

Pujols finished second in the MVP voting for the fourth time in his career — tying Cardinals Hall of Famer Stan Musial, who also won three MVPs — and Pujols has been in the top 10 in the voting in each of his 10 seasons, in the top five in nine of them and in the top three an almost astounding eight times in 10 years.

When asked how he felt about beating out such great players as Pujols and Gonzalez, Votto said, "I don't like throwing around the word 'great.' Albert Pujols is the only 'great' guy I would mention (of the three contenders).

"He's one of the five or six great players in the game. Carlos and I are trying to establish ourselves.

"It's very special to have beaten out a guy (Pujols) … you can't help but watch one of the greatest hitters of all time. He might go down as one of the greatest players of all time, also."