Mound Visits: We survived the All-Star break! We did it!

Welcome to Mound Visits, your weekly recap of the best things you might have missed in baseball every week. This week brings us Bryce Harper’s Home Run Derby headband, his extremely strong father, and Manny Machado hanging out with his future teammates in Washington D.C. Plus everything else you might have missed in baseball this week.

Have a favorite baseball moment from the week? Tweet it at me, and I’ll include it in next week’s column.

Look at this face. This is the face of someone who knows he’s about to hit a bunch of baseballs really far while looking extremely good in a headband. A D.C. themed headband too.

Sure, it restricted his impressive flow. But if the tradeoff for an awesome headband that made him look like a backyard wiffle ball champion is one night not being able to see Harper’s hair flow free, than I will happily take it.

Harper almost lost the Home Run Derby because his dad started botching pitches, but after a few sloppy ones he got grooving again and sealed the win for his son on Nationals’ home turf. Now, if you’ve been a follower of baseball for a while you know that Papa Harper is also very strong. His arms are like Navy Destroyers that have somehow been bound by Under Armour material.

How did he not become a college football strength coach, you ask? We may never know.

If you care about this, you are the cops.

This is either someone who hates being in pictures pulling the “no don’t worry about it! I don’t mind taking it!” or George Springer being a truly nice human being. Possibly both. The commitment here is admirable though, this is a level of picture framing that usually takes four mimosas at a Saturday brunch to reach. MVP-level group pic taking.

Let’s take a break from talking about this. We’ll circle back when we have to.

Like hanging out with your close friend’s private school friends when you think your application for sophomore year will be approved. Laying the groundwork is important. Manny Machado embraced the opportunity of playing opposite Dodgers players in the All-Star Game, and started making friends. Which is good since he was traded the next day.

He might not have known where he was going for sure ...

But he had a pretty good idea so he started making Matt Kemp his best friend as soon as possible.

Good strategy, kid.

I mean. Come on. It’s perfect.

Is there a better way to find out your team just landed the biggest target of the trade deadline? On a boat? Check. Not having to play baseball in humid D.C. weather over the break? Check. Finding out at the same time as your buddy and getting to do a really cool high five about the news? Check. Justin Turner and Alex Wood had it made this All-Star Break.