Baseball's elite hitters are a step above the crowd, in part, because they rarely if ever "give away" at-bats. Quick wrists, hand-eye coordination and patience are valuable attributes, but so is the discipline to lay off the borderline pitch and approach each plate appearance with the same machine-like intensity as the one before it and the 300 or 400 still to come.

Joey Votto leads the majors with a .477 on-base percentage. Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images

Cincinnati first baseman Joey Votto has an obsession with maximizing the hitting experience and cranking the volume to "11" each time he steps in the box. And if he ever strays from that mission, the words of a baseball sage drift into his subconscious and keep him on the right path.

Votto has committed large chunks of Ted Williams' book "The Science of Hitting" to memory and frequently been mentioned in the same breath with Larry Walker as an accomplished hitter with Canadian roots. But his baseball muse is a hard-charging, Ray Fosse-steamrolling, Prince Valiant-haircut-wearing, malapropism-dropping, autograph-hawking pariah with a tenacious approach from both sides of the plate.

Several years ago, Votto was standing in the on-deck circle at Great American Ball Park while Pete Rose was watching from a box seat. The two men struck up a conversation, and the Hit King passed along a few pearls of wisdom that resonated. Among other things, he told Votto that it's no sin to reach for the last cookie in the jar. Rose would never have amassed 4,256 hits if he didn't have a touch of the greed-monger in him.

"Early in my career, Pete kept an eye on me," Votto said, "and the one piece of advice he gave me was, 'When you get the second hit, get the third hit. And when you get the third hit, get the fourth hit. And when you get the fourth hit, get the fifth hit.' That really stuck with me, because it's a genuine challenge when you're tired, or you're sick, or the score is mismatched, or you're facing a tough pitcher, or you're not in a good mood that day. Whatever it is.

"What I took away from Pete's advice is, 'You're playing for yourself. You're competing for your team. You're doing the best you can every day to get the most out of your abilities.' So when I have that at-bat when the score is 10-0, yeah, I usually check in with myself and make sure I'm in a prime place to hit and I'm ready to go and I'm not about to give away this at-bat. I'll take my time before the at-bat or call timeout so there's no excuses and nothing I can look back and regret."

Votto doesn't harbor many regrets -- or much compassion, for that matter. Since finishing second to Cubs catcher Geovany Soto in the National League Rookie of the Year balloting in 2008, he's pocketed an MVP award, made three All-Star teams and been enriched beyond his dreams with a 10-year, $225 million contract extension that will keep him with the team through 2023.

Votto has left behind a trail of demoralized pitchers and swollen ERAs along the way. This year, he's back and as formidable as ever, with a fully healed knee, a comfortable stroke and a new pal riding shotgun.

The Reds rank second in the league in runs to Colorado even though they lost cleanup hitter Ryan Ludwick to a shoulder injury in April, their catchers are batting a combined .183 and third baseman Todd Frazier and shortstop Zack Cozart are both off to slow starts offensively. They're thriving because center fielder Shin-Soo Choo and Votto are getting on base at a ridiculous clip in the first and third spots in the batting order, and Brandon Phillips and Jay Bruce are living it up in RBI heaven.

Entering Wednesday's matinee with the Mets at Citi Field, Votto was hitting .353 with a .477 on-base percentage. Then come Miguel Cabrera and Choo at .455. The Cincinnati teammates have spent enough time standing on first and second base that they can use it as a P.O. Box.

New-age mindset

At their current pace, Votto and Choo will both reach base more than 300 times each this season. If they pull it off, they will join Derek Jeter and Bernie Williams of the 1999 Yankees and Craig Biggio and Jeff Bagwell of the 1997 Astros as the only teammates to achieve the feat since Hank Greenberg and Charlie Gehringer did it for Detroit in 1937. The concept of making every at-bat count has often been ascribed to Rose, Tony Gwynn, Wade Boggs, Rod Carew and other serial batting champions. "That's what the good hitters do," said Reds manager Dusty Baker. "This didn't just start now. Luke Appling told me that 30-something years ago [with the Braves]."