Joey Votto earns 2010 Lou Marsh Award
Cincinatti Reds first-baseman Joey Votto has won the 2010 Lou Marsh Award as Canada’s most outstanding athlete.
Votto was the National League’s Most Valuable Player this season after producing scintillating numbers which saw the Toronto native challenge for the triple-crown award.
The 27-year-old hit .324 with 37 home runs and 113 RBIs, and led the MLB in on base percentage (.424), slugging percentage (.600) and on-base plus slugging (1.024). Votto was a major driving
force behind the Reds earning its first post-season birth since 1995.
Since becoming a regular in the Reds staring lineup in 2007, Votto has steadily ascended into one of the game’s elite position players. He has a career batting average of .314 and has
produced 90 home runs, 298 RBIs and 511 hits in just four MLB seasons.
Votto, a 2010 NL All-Star and the National League Hank Aaron Award winner, is just the third ever Canadian to win the MVP award, after Larry Walker and Justin Morneau.
Hall-of-fame pitcher Ferguson Jenkins and Walker are the only two other baseball players to have been given the Lou Marsh Award.
Despite strong competition from professional and amateur athletes, the vote for Votto was a near unanimous choice.
Other finalists were Pittsburgh Penguins centre, Chicago Blackhawks centre Jonathan Toews, UFC welterweight champion Georges St.-Pierre, figure skater Joannie Rochette, speedskater Christine
Nesbitt, mogul skier Alexandre Bilodeauand ice dancers Scott Moir and Tessa Virtue.
The award has been given out by the Toronto Star since 1936, and is named after longtime Star sports editor Lou Marsh.
The honour is voted on by a national group of sports editors, reporters and broadcasters from the CBC, CTV, The Globe and Mail, National Post, The Canadian Press, The Fan 590, Toronto
Sun, Toronto Star, Yahoo, Rogers Sportsnet, TSN and La Presse.
Recent award recipients include Crosby, wheelchair racer Chantal Petitclerc, speed skater Cindy Klassen, Phoenix Suns point guard Steve Nash, kayaker Adam van Koeverden and golfer Mike
Weir.
Wayne Gretzky has won the Lou Marsh Award on four occasions, more than any other athlete.
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