ATLANTA

Yes, we know Jose Bautista is featured in this week’s Sports Illustrated, but all-star voting is almost over.

Sure, we’re aware that Bautista’s power numbers have diminished in June, yet his overall lead over second-place vote-getter Robinson Cano of the Yankees has actually increased by 6 per cent.

So why is it that the Jays’ starry right fielder — playing far outside of the big-market glare, with only a sketchy MLB-TV promo of him as a Mob enforcer whacking a baseball — remains the trendy pick as a starter in the AL outfield, ahead of Curtis Granderson and Josh Hamilton?

“It’s the fact that people are recognizing that you’re doing well and they’re following you,” Bautista suggested of his unexpected popularity surge. “Last year, I was getting a lot of support in the Dominican and Canada, but maybe not so much in the States. Now it shows I’m getting more support and that’s huge.

“It’s gratifying that people notice. At the same time, now that I’ve been out there (in) the spotlight for a little longer, even though we’re not one of the big baseball markets, we’re in a fairly big one. I get the support of some areas that other guys might not get. But for the most part, getting more coverage in the States has been big.”

In numbers released Monday, Bautista had accumulated 4,156,940 votes. Second was the Yankees’ second baseman, Cano, at 3,664,498. Recall when the first release came out on June 1, Cano’s total was 94 per cent of Bautista’s. This time, Cano was at 88 per cent.

Ballots are distributed at 23 home games for every MLB team and also online, where every email address has the right to vote 25 times. Given the difference in home attendance between the two teams, that would seem to be advantage Yankees.

How big an obstacle has Bautista overcome to be running away as the top vote-getter? Consider also that the current leaders in the AL include five Yankees — Cano, Granderson, Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez and Canadian catcher Russell Martin — and two Red Sox, David Ortiz and Adrian Gonzalez. Bautista and Hamilton of the Rangers, a former overall vote champion, are the outsiders.

So why is Bautista the one this year?

Here’s one theory. Every fan wants to be the one to say they discovered Bautista and they picked him when nobody else knew about him. That anonymity was pretty much true before he hit 54 home runs to lead the majors a year ago. Even then, predictions of him being able to repeat or even come close to repeating were dire.

Now everybody is saying, “Well, I always knew he could do it.”

So, it’s become sort of like that ’70s and ’80 rock group that you felt was yours and yours alone. You attended concerts in small venues and followed them around. You had both of their albums and they were your little secret.

Then all of a sudden everyone discovered your group, which is what is happening with Bautista during this all-star voting. Suddenly, your favourite little group played stadiums and arenas, became famous and you hated them. That’s going to be Bautista next year.

Here’s a second theory. This generation’s stuffing of ballot boxes is in online voting, which allows email addresses to vote 25 times for their favourites. Bautista is the darling of most sabermetricians because of his ridiculous numbers in on-base, slugging and OPS. He’s put together some specialty stats that only an elite group of Hall of Famers has managed.

This, then, is his reward from the stats group. They go online and stuff the ballot boxes. It doesn’t matter what uniform he wears. Jose is a stats god.

For me, that old fashioned ballot-box stuffing was more interesting long before there was online voting. This story has not been told publicly, but the statute of limitations has probably run out.

In 1982, when Montreal was hosting the all-star game, they wanted to make sure there were Expos in the NL starting lineup. So they came up with a plan. One of the Expos’ greatest employees, since passed away, a former World War II PoW named Roger Savard worked in stadium operations and P.R.

On the final day of balloting, in the final hour, maybe the final minute, he and another employee drove a cube truck jammed with ballots down to all-star HQ. Roger said, “Here you go” and dumped bags and bags of completed ballots on the floor.

Unamused MLB officials pulled the ballots out and held them up 300 at a time. Through the industrial-strength drill holes that had been punched out for Gary Carter, Andre Dawson, Tim Raines and Al Oliver you could clearly see New Jersey, so precise was the handiwork.

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Since the game was in Montreal and the club needed the boost, they counted them. Some of those guys, like Carter and Dawson, didn’t need the help. Throw in starting pitcher Steve Rogers and manager Jim Fanning and voila, the greatest Expos representation in all-star history.

Bautista doesn’t need that kind of help in this one. His performance speaks for itself. The in-stadium voting ends on June 24, while the online portion finishes up on June 30 at midnight.

As position players, the Jays right fielder will surely join George Bell, Robbie Alomar, Joe Carter, John Olerud, and Carlos Delgado as all-star game starters voted by the fans. Bautista has already exceeded the Jays’ all-time record of 3,683,682 by Carter in ’94.

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