Excerpt: "Big Red Taxi"

"So you wonder if now Reds fans and the local media, which have been so hard on him, will now appreciate what Joey Votto brought to the team. Votto, like Adam Dunn before him in Cincinnati, like Frank Thomas before him among MVPs, took endless criticism for staying committed to a selective, patient approach at the plate, a commitment that sometimes meant accepting walks in situations where a walk didn't have the immediate value of a base hit or even just a well-struck ball in play. Votto's refusal to be an "RBI guy" in the mold of St. Brandon Phillips was seen as a failure of a player making $20 million a season to take on responsibilities commensurate with salary."