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Has Joey Votto turned his back on his country?

Or, at least, his baseball-playing countrymen?

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The Cincinnati Reds all-star has penned an apology after saying in a podcast on Tuesday that he doesn’t care about Canada, Canadian baseball or his hometown of Toronto.

Votto, who played for Canada at the 2009 and 2013 World Baseball Classics and won the Lou Marsh Award as Canada’s athlete of the year in 2010 and 2017, distanced himself from his home country in an interview with Yahoo! Sports Major League Baseball podcast.

But in an email posted on the Canadian Baseball Network website after the Reds lost 5-3 to the San Francisco Giants Tuesday night, Votto said he is “terribly ashamed” of his comments and called them “ridiculously selfish and short-sighted.”

Votto added: “I am saddened that I was so flagrant with my remarks and more importantly that I offended so many people that mean so much to me.”

Votto’s initial comments came after he was asked about James Paxton of Ladner, B.C., throwing his recent no-hitter for the Seattle Mariners against the Blue Jays in Toronto, becoming the first Canadian in MLB history to do so on home soil.

“People aren’t going to love that I say this (but) I don’t care almost at all about Canadian baseball,” Votto said. “When I say that … I wasn’t raised inside of Canadian baseball really. I played on a local team but as an 18-year-old I was drafted … I’m coming up on half of my life being in the United States working and being supported by American baseball.”

Votto didn’t stop there, offering up total indifference to his home and native land as it relates to Paxton’s historic performance a week ago.