Joey Votto Is Obsessed With Mopping His House, Plans Out When He's Hitting His Home Runs, And May Be The Most Interesting Guy In Baseball
I love Joey Votto so much. He's super underrated even though he's got an MVP award, he's a hell of a hitter, chokes up like no ones business, and he's absolutely hilarious. You see clips come out of him all the time chatting it up with fans and they're always A+ exchanges. Really one of the most unique people in the sport of baseball. Marches to the beat of his own drum, that's for sure.
The Athletic did a piece on him and said he may be "the most interesting man in baseball", and I think they're right. He's gotta be up there with Greinke. The article talks about how he LOVES chatting with guys on first base, he can recall where these guys went to college, what their major was, just stuff you wouldn't expect him to know. He would talk about the differences between Canada and the US, the game, how tight the pitchers pants were, everything. Brandon Hyde, now manager for the Orioles, said that Votto used to tell him who was and who wasn't going to be a good player based on their swing, like right away "this guy is going to stink" and tell him who was bad. Quite a talent to have. It talks about how he reads medical journals for fun, how in the offseason he picks one thing to really focus on and he learns everything he can about it. One year it was watches, one year it was cars, he's just a fascinating guy who wants to learn it all.
Chris Dickerson, a former outfielder, said that Votto used to take improv classes in Los Angeles so he could learn speak to his teammates in a more engaging manner. Who else does that?
This was the best part of the entire article though. Joey Moppo.
Joey Votto loves to mop. Obsessed with it. His teammates said they'll get random videos of him mopping to different music and dancing while mopping, the guy is a mopping machine! They tried to have him create an Instagram account named Joey Moppo to showcase the videos. I now need Votto to rock "Joey Moppo" on the back on his Players Weekend jersey. It really is a good nickname. I get that cleaning is very therapeutic for people, seems like Joey is one of them. I need a mopping celebration after a big homer that he hits.
The guy is a quote machine, and like I said, he's funny as hell. Who else worries about if kids have needles full of TB in them? Joey Moppo does. The article talks about how he's a dancing machine at weddings, basically plans out when he's going to hit home runs the day before, how he studied Barry Bonds, Todd Helton, Tedd Williams, and Albert Pujols and their stances and how it made them better hitters so he mimicked Pujols' stance and won Southern League MVP in 2006. Bronson Arroyo talked about how he would randomly burst out into song, including after Arroyo's last game when he sang word for word "Goodbye My Lover" on the team bus. He's a spark plug of a person and the Reds are lucky to have him.
It was a really good read and makes you love Joey Votto more than you probably already did. Guy is a legend on the field and off. Love live Joey Moppo.