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Award-winning columnist Tom Archdeacon — an old-school storyteller in a brand-new venue — writes about sports, the city, southwest Ohio and anything else that catches his fancy… or yours.Home > Blogs > Through the Arch > Archives > 2009 > July > 05
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Joey Votto’s 4 a.m phone call — a story of an adoptive family and love
WASHINGTON TOWNSHIP — When he came home talking about RBIs — ribbies as runs batted in are called — Linda Trebnick didn’t have a clue what he was referring to.
“Why are you eating at Arby’s?” she asked.
When he finally was called up to the Cincinnati Reds in the 2007 season and told her about the legendary player he now was teamed with, she never could remember the fellow’s name.
She just called him “that Junior Guy.”
Linda admits she doesn’t know much about baseball, but she does know the importance of supportive family — be it adoptive or blood — and she knows friendship.
And she especially knows Joey Votto.
When the heralded Reds first baseman — suddenly fearful and lost — called the Trebnick’s Nutt Road home at 4 a.m. last month, she understood perfectly. She woke her husband, Gregg, who remembers her saying:
“Joey’s in the hospital. He needs us.”
And with that began another chapter in a five-year saga between a local family and the Reds slugging star. It’s the subject of the big story I have in today’s newspaper and it can be found on this web page, too.
Votto lived with the Trebnicks when he played for the Dayton Dragons in 2004 and has stayed especially close to them ever since. Although he had called with a lesser depression issue some three years ago Gregg said, this time — coupled with some physical ailments that had hampered his ability to play — was far more serious.
Votto has said the meltdown was triggered by his inability to deal with his father’s death last August.
“He said the baseball stress part was about this much,” Linda said holding her thumb and index finger an inch apart. “It was just like the tip of that iceberg that the Titanic hit.”
Beneath the surface, Votto endured growing depression and panic attacks that forced him to the bench midway through some games in May, then onto the disabled list and finally prompted his 9-1-1 call which put him in a Northern Kentucky hospital.
That’s when he reached out again to the Trebnicks and what has happened since, has been truly remarkable.
Thanks in a big way to the Washington Township family, Votto again is leading the Reds.
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