What’s Up with Joey Votto?

It was a great start. Joey Votto started his season with a successful appearance in the World Baseball Classic (if you can call any aspect of Canada’s appearance successful), and continued his success when the Cincinnati Reds opened the 2009 baseball season.

This was the season where Adam Dunn and Ken Griffey Jr. were no more, and Votto and Bruce were handed the responsibility to return the franchise to a winning record. And it looked like they were on their way.

 

Joey Votto

Then early on  it appeared Votto was experiencing a mysterious sickness which later was diagnosed as an ear infection. After a stint on the DL, he came back but was quickly out again for ‘stress-related-issues’. These undefined issues have kept Votto out of the game for a great part of this season, but there’s hope he’ll be back soon.

These undefined issues are concerning. We don’t know what they are, or if they are physical or mental. Already this season we have been witness to Kahil Greene battle issues in St. Louis which have been recently revealed to be anxiety when playing in front of crowds (a tough diagnosis when you play in MLB). I’d hate to see this situation repeat itself with Votto.

Given the stats he was able to put up when he was healthy, it will be interesting to see how this gap in his year affects his performance. Let’s hope he can return to the form we witnessed earlier this year, and have the opportunity to witness yet another young Canadian become a star.

Adam Loewen … revisited.

A while ago I had a baseball blog that didn’t really go too far.  But one post that was quite popular was what I wrote about Adam Loewen.  You may remember him as a Canadian top prospect pitcher, who after being drafted by Baltimore, appeared to have a good career ahead of him.  But injuries slowed down his progress, and he made the brave decision to end his pitching career in order to prevent any more surgeries.  He was traded to the Toronto Blue Jays and has been working his way through their farm system as a position player.

Here is my original post …

Now Pitching … Not Adam Loewen

It takes a lot of courage to quit a job that you have been successful at and start over at a new one.  It also takes a great deal of intelligence to understand the long term risks to your health and put yourself first instead of money, fame, and a major league career.

But that’s exactly what Adam Loewen did this week when he announced that he was done with elbow surgeries and would restart his career as a position player.  He refused the suggestion of yet another surgery and decided to start over by picking up a bat and changing his career.  I can’t say I believe his would be the preferred choice of most MLB players, given the amounts they are paid in the majors versus the minors.  Loewen showed that money is not at at the top of his priority list.

Now, we’ve seen this happen before, with the notable case being that of St. Louis Cardinals’ Rick Ankiel.  Not too many people have forgotten his post-season pitching performance where he continually tested the strength of the screen behind home plate to the dismay of the catcher.  Most thought his baseball career was done, but he stuck with it, moving through the Cardinals’ farm system and eventually making it back to the majors last year where he’s had great success and is one of the reasons the Cardinals are still in contention.  Most had written the team off before spring training.

So now we get to see if Loewen can be as successful.  Let’s hope that the percervearavnce that got him to the majors continues, and we can once again head to Camden Yards to cheer on the Canadian.  Now that would be a great story.

Welcome

After being quite active on Twitter for a few months, and seeing the interest grow in Canadian baseball players and teams, I’ve decided to expand my Twitter experiment and create this blog.  Not limited to 140 characters, I can now add more thoughts and opinions to the news and events of Canadians playing in major league baseball.

My hope is this is a blog that will promote the great achievements of these Canadian players, and put into perspective their place in Canadian and baseball history.  Enjoy!