Spring Training good bad and ugly

[grampahol]

I just don't get the Votto hate some people seem to express here and other places. Think about it. When the greats like Bench, Concepcion, Larkin and others aged and batting averages, etc., fell off I didn't hear calls to trade them or cut them from rosters and nobody complained about the fact they were sticking around. Is it the salary? Votto never demanded that long term, high dollar contract that keeps him around well after the sell by date. His talent and stats demanded the salary compared to other players of his era and in todays game it could be argued Votto's been underpaid by todays standards. That contract was done by management and ownership at the time. But in the meantime Joey Votto's been a damned good first baseman and never really complained about the lack of fans in stands even when the team was doing horrible and in fact for several years he was just about the only player carrying his weight. He's had several seasons in recent memory when he could have easily been the league MVP and he'll very likely retire as a Red, maybe the last Reds player to do so for some time. Now, should he be batting 2nd all season? That's certainly debatable, but in my opinion Joey Votto deserves the respect other great Reds players nearing retirement received and I look forward to his farewell to Reds fans when he does retire. I'd love to see Joey Votto go out with at least one championship under his belt. I don't begrudge having Joey Votto representing the Cincinnati Reds one bit. In fact it is us who should be honored he's still with the club after everything.. If the Reds do win the WS this season I think Joey Votto will be enshrined in Cooperstown and rightfully so.