Matt Adams Shoves Fan During Cardinals Game (VIDEO)
Cardinals star Matt Adams landed in hot water after appearing to shove a fan when the pair both went after a foul ball during Thursday's game.
During the game between the St. Louis Cardinals and the Cincinnati Reds on April 1, Adams sprinted towards the audience chasing a foul ball. However, a Reds fan named Chris Smith had already caught the ball from the stands at the Great American Ball Park. As a result, the frustrated Cardinals first baseman was caught on video tapping Smith with his baseball glove in what looked like a shove, according to The Bleacher Report.
Following the incident, which occurred at the bottom of the third inning, Smith responded to Adams' shove by giving the Cardinals player the middle finger. Smith later offered a first-hand account of what happened with Adams while speaking to The Cincinnati Enquirer.
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"He gave me a shove and I fell back," said the fan. "I'm pretty sensitive about my knee right now. I'm fresh out of surgery, it's nothing to joke around about."
Smith maintained that he caught the foul ball fair and square after having leaned over the tarp - a fan has the right to catch a ball as long as they do not enter the field of play.
"I didn't reach over, I stayed where I was, I couldn't reach out if I tried, because I can't hit my knee on anything," he explained.
The video feed appears to be in Smith's favor- the entire exchange with Adams was caught on television. Check out a video of the incident below.
Nevertheless, the shove was not a violent one, and Smith defended that he did not mean to shove Smith at all in a statement following Thursday's game.
"I'm not the type of guy to go after anybody," said the Cardinals player, according to Cincinatti.com. "I was just trying to stop from going into the stands and stop from falling in there."
Cardinal's manager Mike Matheny also downplayed the incident and suggested Adams was simply avoiding falling into the stands when he appeared to tap Smith.
