Mound Visits: It’s ‘Fight Your Coworkers’ week in baseball

Welcome to Mound Visits, your weekly recap of the best things you might have missed in baseball every week. This week brings us fighting stories from both the Mariners and the Tigers, bug-infested hats, and Trevor Williams’ amazing reflexes.

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

Something must have been in the water this week in baseball, because not one but two cases of infighting happened over the span of a few days. First, Dee Gordon kindly asked the media to leave the Mariners locker room so he could fight Jean Segura and then denied he was even there for the fight the next day — again, even though he was the one who told the media.

Then, a Tigers broadcasting team apparently had such an already tense and strained relationship that all it took was a disagreement over a chair for one of them to choke the other one from behind. They did not work the next day’s game and flew back to Detroit separately so they wouldn’t fight in the airport. Baseball needs to collectively get a massage or something.

It’s ... so beautiful.

We’ve seen enough from Votto here this year that we know for sure he’s a treasure. A snarky, but well-meaning treasure. This week he saw a fan wearing a “Votto for President” shirt that was part of a Nike campaign back in 2012. He somehow didn’t get one of his own during that campaign so wanted the fan’s, and traded it for a signed jersey.

He did this in the middle of the game, an eventual 5-1 loss to the Pirates. Of course, since Votto is Canadian he can’t actually run for president so he signed it “more like Prime Minister!” which makes this even better. A treasure.

Hawk Harrelson almost got hit with a foul ball but AJ Pierzynski stepped in and snatched it out of thin air to save the day. Hope Hawk at least bought him a drink for that one.

Trevor Williams wasn’t about to let Pierzynski get all the glory though, as he snagged his foul ball in the middle of an in-game interview, dabbed, and then tossed it into the crowd. Casual as can be. Nothing to see here folks.

VERY GOOD DOGS SMILING THAT IS ALL

Those noses!

Those tongues!

Those fluffy tails!

I am undone.

There’s lots of ways game-day giveaways can go wrong. Something’s spelt wrong, the item is defective, fans get rowdy trying to get an especially attractive free item. But “sorry we can’t give you hats because they have bugs in them” is probably a new one.

San Diego’s giveaway this week was beach hats, and after the handout had already started realized that there were grain beetles in the packaging. Grain beetles apparently don’t cause any adverse health effects in humans but that’s still super gross and not something anyone wants in their hair or near their face. Even more depressing for the Padres is that is probably going to be one of the most memorable parts of their season.

We’ve written here about the Daniel Murphy trade and the Cubs’ complicity in his homophobic opinions now that he’s on their team. Usually, Atlanta Braves’ organist Matthew Kaminski has fun with opposing batters by playing music that ribs them a little or references some recent events in their lives for fun.

This week, when the Braves hosted the Cubs, he went in a slightly different direction and made a statement when Murphy came to the plate. He played “Lola,” “What the World Needs Now is Love,” and “Born This Way” all making statements about the LGBTQ community in one way or another.

In a since-deleted tweet, Kaminski also said he was asked to stop playing walkup songs for the rest of one game against the Cubs, but that’s happened before and against other teams so doesn’t seem to be explicitly related to the Murphy songs.

Watch your back, Dave Martinez. And keep that resumé updated.

The Double A New Hampshire Fisher Cats might not have Vlad Guerrero, Jr. on their roster anymore but that doesn’t mean they’re completely devoid of impressive displays of offense. I think this deserves a BOOM?

Yeah, that deserves a BOOM.

Madison, Alabama’s new Southern League baseball franchise finally decided the team’s name this week and among the options for the new team name was Trash Pandas. That was obviously the best name of the bunch but would it win? YES IT WOULD. Thank goodness, common sense still reigns in some places.

The guy who came up with the name was just thinking of animals local to Madison that would be fun mascots when he submitted it, and now there’s a baseball team with a raccoon as a mascot. And a connection to Guardians of the Galaxy to boot. Life is magic.

The other name choices were ThunderSharks, Moon Possums, Space Chimps, and Comet Jockeys. Not a true bad choice in the bunch. Just some good choices that were worse than others. Most importantly, the fanbase also voted correctly in a very important poll.

The team doesn’t start playing until 2020 but hopefully we can get some of that sweet, sweet Trash Panda merch way before then.