The seventh inning was an interesting one between the St. Louis Cardinals and the Cincinnati Reds on Tuesday night at Great American Ball Park.

The Cardinals’ Stephen Piscotty sent a pop fly down the first base side, where Reds first baseman Joey Votto was in pretty great position to make a play. Unfortunately for Votto, a fan hopeful to catch a baseball bumped Votto arm’s as he was going for the ball, and Votto wasn’t able to make a play on it.

Needless to say, Votto wasn’t happy, and grabbed the fan by the shirt, pointing out that the fan was hurting his team:

Votto was upset, and understandably so. But Votto realized things from the fan’s perspective as well, and made a pretty nice gesture in signing a ball for the fan, and making amends before the next inning.

The ball read:

Thanks for being so understanding when I acted out of character – Joey Votto

Overall it seemed that the experience wasn’t going to be great for the fan. Others around him likely would have heckled him (and probably did) had Votto not gone over to show things were alright.

So from that perspective, Votto did the right thing, and was pretty great about the whole thing. It might have been because he had a pretty darn good night at the plate, going 4-for-4 with 2 runs and an RBI on the night in a wild walk-off Reds win.

[MLB]

About Harry Lyles Jr.

Harry Lyles Jr. is an Atlanta-based writer, and a Georgia State University graduate.