Votto befriends Alonso, his competition

GOODYEAR, Ariz. — Yonder Alonso hears it almost in his sleep and for certain hears it over and over and over from his friends in Doral, Florida.

It goes something like this: “Hey, Yonder. You’re a first baseman and Joey Votto is a first baseman. What are you going to do, man? What’s going to happen?”

Alonso thought the same thing when he walked into his first major-league spring training camp with the Cincinnati Reds last year as the team’s No. 1 draft pick in 2008 and the club’s top prospect.

And then he met Joey Votto.

“People ask me that at home and I look at it like this: The guy is probably the best player on the team, if not THE best player. I just try to learn from him every single day. That’s all I try to do. I pretty much nag him. I ask him every day, ‘What do I do here and how do I do that?’ That’s the way it was all last spring.”

What flabbergasted Alonso is that Votto befriended him, despite the fact they both are young and both play the same position.

“He is a good friend,” Alonso said. “He is a great baseball player, a good person and a good friend. You don’t find many guys like that, especially guys at the same position on the same team.

“I thought when I first came in, ‘Man, it is going to be hard dealing with Votto,’ ” Alonso said. “But it was the exact opposite. He has just done nothing but help me out and been a good friend. He told me how Albert Pujols (of the St. Louis Cardinals) helped him out a lot and he is trying to do the same for me.

“You never know what is going to happen because this game is so crazy,” he said. “This is my first year and a lot of things went on - injuries, trades. And I look at it that I’ll do whatever it takes, like play first, third, left, right or pinch-hit. As long as I can play and help the team.”

SPEAKING OF never knowing what events are in your future, Alonso suffered a major one last year.

He began the season at high-A in Sarasota and hit .303 in 49 games with seven homers and 38 RBIs.

HE WAS PROMOTED to Double-A Carolina in early June. It was one week into his Double-A career and Alonso takes it from here:

“We were playing a doubleheader in Knoxville (Tenn.) and in the minors they play seven innings in doubleheaders,” he said. “Well, the first game went 10 innings and I hit a game-winning home run.

“We had 25 minutes between games and then in my first at-bat in the second game I took a swing and fouled off a pitch,” he said. “But I felt something in my neck. It hurt. The trainer came out and looked at my right hand and it was blue. When he touched it, man, the pain was awful.”
Turned out Alonso fractured a bone in his right wrist that required surgery and put him out of action for 10 weeks.

“I started out really good in high-A,” he said. “It’s a tough league to hit in. Then I went to Double-A and was doing good for a week and suddenly I’m done for 10 weeks. I hit that home run and then the next at-bat, poof, I was gone. Done for 10 weeks and that really sucked.

“When I broke it, it landed on two of the veins in my wrist and the pain went all the way to my neck,” he said. “I thought something was wrong with my neck and I told the trainer, ‘My neck, my neck,’ but he pointed to my palm and it was blue.’ “

And his thoughts?

“I had to deal with it, but at the time I thought, ‘Oh my God, what is going on?’ I thought I was done for the year,” he said. “I’m done, that’s it, I won’t play the rest of the year.”

ALONSO DID his rehab work, even though he thought his season was over, and came back in time to play the last week for Carolina, then for Class AAA Louisville in the post-season playoffs.

“I wasn’t healthy, wasn’t 100 percent, but I was able to at least help my team win some games,” he said.

“It was rough, man,” he said.

Now he is in his second big-league camp and is enjoying it much more than last year.

“This is unbelievable,” he said. “Last year it wasn’t much fun because I didn’t know anybody and I didn’t want to step on anybody’s shoes. But I played in high-A, Double-A and Triple-A and I got to know everybody. So we all hang around now, just trying to enjoy things. Much more fun this year.”

ALONSO played mostly first base all last year, but dabbled a few games in left field. He didn’t play any third base, “But I took ground balls there every day, every single day. I could have played there but we have too many guys who are third basemen - guys like Chris Valaika, Zack Cozart, Todd Frazier and Juan Francisco.”

There is no doubt his future is top-shelf, but it remains in the future where he plays and for whom he plays.



(daytondailynews.com)