# Starkville | Joey Votto Traveled the World and Arrived Back in Baseball

An episode of [Rates & Barrels: A show about Baseball](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1486883874), 23 May 2026, 1 h 16 min.

Audio: https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/6818a1a4eb737caf8ca41879/e/6a1091a8f49628d84f66aecd/media.mp3

Joey Votto spent the years since his 2024 retirement surfing in Sri Lanka, watching cricket in Dubai, and learning to make sushi in Japan. Now he's back in North America and stopping by Starkville for a wide-ranging conversation with Jayson and Doug — what he took away from his travels, and how he sees baseball differently from the outside. Plus, the Pittsburgh Zoo and Boston's Franklin Park Zoo just completed a gorilla-for-gorilla swap — Frankie for Little Joe, straight up — and Jayson and Doug break it down before building their own MLB all-zoo team. Rundown: 3:00 A Most Unusual Trade Involving Gorillas 6:45 Starkville’s All-Zoo Team 17:18 Joey Votto Joins the Show 20:00 Living the Retired Life 28:17 Greatness of Shohei Ohtani 38:48 Analyzing the Game 41:13 Reaction to ABS 48:07 If You Were Commissioner… 53:23 Living the Retired Life 1:00:06 Coming Back to the Game 1:04:45 Strange But True: Byron Buxton and the Minnesota Twins Follow Jayson on Bluesky: @jaysonst.bsky.social Follow Doug on Bluesky: @dougglanville.bsky.social E-mail: starkville@theathletic.com Starkville Hotline: (347) 313-8371 Subscribe to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Hosts: Jayson Stark & Doug Glanville With: Joey Votto Producer: Jason Potere Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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