Washington Twp. residents helped Votto on his road back

“Joey’s in the hospital. He needs us.”

And with that began another chapter in a five-year saga of friendship, trust and unwavering support between a local family and the Cincinnati Reds first baseman, Joey Votto.

It has encompassed Reds off days and Trebnick family vacations together. It’s included nighttime respites sitting in the family’s swimming pool kibitzing and smoking Cuban cigars and, of course, that regular, Votto-instigated midnight ritual — heaping bowls of vanilla ice cream, brownies and watching “The Dating Game” on television.

There have been hours of light-hearted text messages and e-mails back and forth when the Reds are on the road. There’s always an open invitation and a room in the Trebnick’s Washington Twp. home for Votto — and then there was that pre-dawn plea for help.

Before making that call, Votto had been in his Cincinnati-area apartment trying to deal with his demons on his own.

As he described it, “It was the scariest moment I’ve ever dealt with in my life. It got to a point where I couldn’t take it. ... I thought I was going to die.”

In the process of coping with respiratory and inner-ear infections, he suddenly had been overwhelmed by mental pressures that slowly had been consuming him for nearly 10 months.

When his 52-year-old father died last August, Votto tried to override the grieving process — the whole sense of loss — by immersing himself in an all-consuming cocoon of baseball.

It didn’t work, and the illnesses that prevented him from playing ball — and may have been prolonged because “he just doesn’t like taking medication,” Gregg said — gave him a lot of time alone, and his thoughts triggered his depression.

Back in Cincinnati and on the disabled list with what the team simply called a “stress-related” problem, Votto was holed up at home, not sleeping at night and finally found himself in the middle of a full-scale panic attack. He dialed 9-1-1 and was taken by ambulance to a Northern Kentucky hospital, where he was put on medication.

“I couldn’t have handled being by myself then and while (the Trebnicks) were my only option at the time, they really were — no matter what the circumstance — my best option, as well,” Votto said the other day as he sat at his corner dressing stall in the Reds clubhouse before a game at Great American Ball Park.

“Not taking anything away from my mom and brothers, but going across the border (to his home in Toronto) was pretty unrealistic, and besides, they were grieving, too.”

When the Trebnicks arrived at the hospital, Linda found the unfailingly polite Votto quietly talking to gathered staffers, giving in to autograph requests and then shaking hands and thanking everyone before he left.

“But I couldn’t believe how he looked,” Linda said with eyes beginning to glisten.

“In the car I teased him,” Gregg said. “I told him, ‘You are a mess.’ ”

It was the kind of good-natured jab the two often exchange and it helped deflate the moment.

“I’m the mom,” Linda said, “and I told him, ‘You know what Joey? I’m going to feed you, get some weight back on you and you’re going to get emotionally, spiritually and physically healthy.’ ”

The promise hit home.

“He hadn’t told anybody anything that had been going on, but in the car he started talking and didn’t shut up,” Gregg said. “He got everything off his chest and he felt better.”

The Trebnicks drove him to his place, stayed with him and for the first time in a long time he was able to sleep. After a day, Gregg returned to Trebnick Systems, the family business in Springboro, but Linda stayed for a few more days. She was joined by one of her two daughters — both of whom Votto treats like sisters — and eventually the family brought him back to their Nutt Road home to recuperate.

“The first thing I did was open the blinds and doors,” Linda said. “I said, ‘You can’t live like this. You’re going to have people in your life. We’re going to let some sunlight back in.’ ”

Helping the girls out

Back in the early years of the Dayton Dragons, the Trebnicks were attending Apex Community Church in Centerville. That’s where they read a notice that the local minor-league team was looking for host families who would take in ballplayers.

They figured they’d try it. They had a big home and, back then, three teenage children of their own — son Aaron (now 27) and two beautiful daughters, Amy (24) and April (20) — and while Linda is not sports-minded, Gregg had played small-college football and briefly in the NFL as a 6-foot-6 wide receiver with the Atlanta Falcons and New York Giants.

“Why did we become a host family?” Gregg grinned. “Let me tell you the joke version.”

“Wait, wait ... that’s not for print,” Linda said with an exasperated look at her husband.

“You can print it,” Gregg said. Linda finally shrugged, “OK, but I just want you to know he’s full of it.”

And so with relish, Gregg explained: “Back then our daughters were maybe 12 and 16, and I didn’t want them to grow up naive. People said, ‘How could you let three ballplayers and the team trainer live with you?’ I said, ‘Well, the girls are kind of ugly. I’m trying to help them out.’ ”

Linda shook her head and said the real goal was to provide “a good Christian home” for players who stayed with them. In the process, there also was a supportive, fun-loving environment.

Over the years, they’ve had about a dozen players live with them, including Votto, who spent his entire 2004 season with the Dragons at their home.

“Yeah, they had three rules,” he said with a laugh. “No drinking. No girls. Don’t mess with the daughters.”

Linda smiled when his recollection later was relayed to her: “He’s exactly right, but let me tell you something. Over the course of years, all of those rules have been broken, and one player broke all three at once.”

Gregg nodded: “She chewed them out, and the one player hasn’t talked to her since.”

But over the years, Votto’s relationship with the family has deepened.

“They’re a nice family,” he said. “They don’t smother you, but they enjoy spending time with you and they’d do anything for you. And there are no strings attached. Occasionally they’ll catch a game, but they don’t care one way or another about baseball. They just care about you. That’s what’s so comforting about them.”

In fact, Linda told how she heard the guys talking about RBIs and, with some puzzlement, finally said, “Why are you eating at Arby’s?”

Away from the ballpark, the Trebnicks said Votto was consumed by baseball and often watched videos of hitters and pitchers.

“One year he saw every pitch that was thrown to Barry Bonds — and he saw them all about 25 times,” Gregg said. “I call it perpetual learning.

“That’s why, when the players come in the door here, it’s like ‘pffffffff.’ It’s like a steam release.”

Gregg and Joey especially hit it off.

“I’m from the Iron Range of northern Minnesota — a little town called Bovey — and he’s from Canada,” Gregg said. “I guess we both froze our minds.”

After Votto moved on up the minor-league ranks and then onto the Reds near the end of the 2007 season, he stayed in close contact with the family and spent a lot of time in the Dayton area. Whether it was working out at Neo Limits, shopping at Kroger or hitting golf balls at Rollandia, he often went unnoticed.

“They played a round of golf at Yankee Trace with a doctor,” Linda said. “Afterward the guy told Gregg, ‘That kid looks like he could have been a good athlete. He really has something special.’ ”

Gregg just smiled: “Yes, I think you’re right.”

On the road with the Reds, Votto sometimes will play online Scrabble with Linda, who is back home.

“Last year he started text-messaging me before the Super Bowl,” Gregg said. “He was in Florida and I was in my room upstairs, and next thing I know, the game is over and we’re still messaging. Five hours straight. I missed the whole game, but we talked about everything.”

Votto has stayed with the family in the winter, he visits them on Reds off days or sometimes after a day game and, more than once, he’s invited himself along on the Trebnicks’ trips to Florida.

“We went to Universal Studio because he absolutely loves roller coasters,” Linda said. “I mean, he just loves a roller-coaster ride.”

She was talking about the amusement park kind.

‘Now that’s class’

When Votto reached out to the Trebnicks for help, he got the whole family. Even their dogs.

They’re Vizslas, velvety-brown Hungarian bird dogs named Aspen and Q, and it’s safe to say they love the Cincinnati slugger even more than the most ardent Reds fan.

They sleep with him when he stays with the Trebnicks, and when Gregg and Linda came back home from Votto’s place, they sent their two dogs to stay with him.

Votto brought the bird dogs to Great American Ball Park, where Gregg said with a laugh, “They’ve even been kicked off the field. They’ve been with Joey to the weight room, too, and they even stood outside the shower room waiting for him to clean up.”

Just as Aspen and Q were waiting for him, Votto knew the Reds were, too. The team’s top hitter when he left, he missed 21 games in late May and June.

“Here’s one scene I won’t forget,” Gregg said. “Joey’s lying on our couch here trying to get better and the Reds are on TV and he’s rooting for them. He’s really pulling hard for Jay Bruce and then Jay hits a home run. Joey texts him a message and Jay sends him one back.”

During this time, Linda made sure Votto focused on the right things: “He worried people would think he was slacking and that his team felt let down.”

Gregg nodded: “But Mr. Castellini (Reds owner Bob Castellini) called him up and said, ‘Joey, you do whatever you have to do to get better and you do it at your pace.’

“I didn’t know anything about the Reds organization, but I thought to myself, ‘Now that’s class.’ They did everything from the top on down to help. They had two psychologists right here at our house with him. They showed true concern for Joey.”

Votto said the same should be said about the Trebnicks: “It’s been a big-time struggle over the last month or month and a half, but they were there for me.”

Linda smiled, but redirected the praise: “We were his support, but give him the credit. He did it. He knew he needed help and he got it. I told him one day, ‘You’re a very strong person physically and emotionally and you will come back.’ ”

Using humor for insulation, she said she also reminded him of an option: “For a couple of years, he took night classes online because one day he wants to teach.

“After we picked him up that first night, I saw he had a sense of humor, so the next morning I said, ‘Well, if baseball doesn’t work out, you can always be a teacher.’ He said, ‘I think I want to play baseball.’ ”

He proved it, Gregg said, by coming back faster than most people: “The average guy would have needed two months at least.”

Linda said it helped when Votto finally shed the secrecy of his absence and opened up to the media 12 days ago while sitting in the dugout in Toronto: “It was like a weight was lifted off of him. He realized everybody has problems.

“I think he was really happy to realize his worst fears were not as bad as what he thought they’d be. He realized he was going to be OK.”

And now he’s showing it. When he joined the Dragons for a two-game test of his mettle two weeks ago, he hit a home run on the first pitch thrown to him.

After rejoining the Reds and pouring his heart out, he won the game for the team a couple of nights later with a home run. He did the same thing Thursday, getting four hits, including the game-winning RBI single in the 10th inning against Arizona.

And so it turns out that guy at Yankee Trace was right.

Joey Votto does have something special.

Actually many things — but especially a family that will answer his 4 a.m. call, share some late-night ice cream and brownies and then the next morning make sure the sun shines in on him.

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2156 or tarchdeacon @DaytonDailyNews.com.