Hoser update: The heat is ridiculous.

I miss my igloo. I miss riding my snowmobile to the beer store to pick up a two-four of Molson. I miss moose meat and its stringy goodness. The summer heat is absolutely unbearable, so much so that it would dry the tears off the face of everybody in Ohio this morning.

Today was the big day, when Joey Votto got a chance to stare down dinosaur Charlie Manuel for keeping him off the NL All-Star team. Not only did Votto win the 'Final Vote' to earn him a spot on the team (although his numbers, though better than Pujols' is, apparently aren't enough to give him a starting spot) but on his first at-bat he went yard to deep right. What with Votto leading the NL in home runs, and the Blue Jays' Jose Bautista leading the AL, if chicks dig the long ball, then Toronto would be Kim Kardashian right now.

Ryder Hesjedal is still 4th in the Tour de France. I'm starting to think that nobody really changes places in this. All I know is I was too much of a pussy to bike up a hill to work in the heat yesterday. These riders have more stones than Palestinians.

Finally, Bruce Arthur of the National Post explains how wrong the Lebron special was. I was going to do a post like this and how athletes string along fans and the media, and how Lebron is American, Kovalchuk is Russian and Mats Sundin is Swedish, but then I remembered Scott Niedermayer. I guess we weren't above all this after all.

We have football tomorrow, gang. Sure, it's the Argos, but I'm always looking for an excuse to drink to excess to tune out Glen Suitor.

Your daily hoser update

-Somehow I think that Joey Votto has this 'Final Vote' All-Star thing locked up. Not only does Votto have the endorsement of former MVP Justin Morneau, but I'm pretty sure that Billy Wagner's campaign doesn't have a re-imagining of a Styx song going for it.



Votto went 0-for-2 tonight, but prior to yesterday's games he had the league lead in most important batting categories: Home runs, on-base percentage, slugging, and, by extension, OPS. Not only does this mean that Votto is turning into a player as good as Albert Pujols, but that the 'Eh' Factor now pretty much only recognizes statistics invented by Bill James. (Votto also lead Pujols in runs created. We needed to use our collective fingers and toes to figure that one out)

Then Ryan Zimmerman, also part of the 'Final Vote' decided to be a poor sport and hit a walkoff home run tonight. But, if Votto's 21 home runs didn't matter in determining who made the All-Star team, I doubt that one from Zimmerman will.

-We like some members of the St. Louis Cardinals. Like Blake Hawksworth, who started against Jeff Francis today. T..t..two!!! Two Canucks started on the mound tonight at Coors Field (In Canada, our Coors Field is stronger).

Unfortunately, the two combined for nine innings, 14 hits, seven earned runs and six strikeouts. Damn.

-Currently, Victoria's Ryder Hesjedal is in fourth place in the competition to ride your bike around former Nazi-occupied countries really fast. Fourth is pretty good. It seems like we're doing well without looking too pretentious.

-Why Not Winnipeg? asks Dave Naylor (played by Aaron Eckhart) in a joint effort between TSN and the Globe and Mail. Well, here's why, Jason Brough of the Kurtenblog says. I guess that solves that.