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From Arkansas to Nats Park: The story of Bryce Harper’s Home Run Derby headband

July 19, 2018 at 4:43 p.m. EDT
Bryce Harper during Monday’s Home Run Derby. (Katherine Frey/The Washington Post)

Adam Miller, vice president of marketing for Junk Brands, the Arkansas-based company that manufactures what is the world’s hottest-selling D.C. flag headband, figured there was a 50-50 chance Nationals outfielder Bryce Harper would wear his in Monday’s Home Run Derby. Craig Lile, Junk Brands’ president, put the odds at closer to one in 100.

“Internally, I don’t think there were any expectations on our part,” Lile said Thursday in a phone interview. “We were thinking there would probably be a restriction somewhere, that someone would tell him he couldn’t wear it, or he would forget them at his house, or he would change his mind and decide to wear a hat. There was no contract or promises made. It was an awesome happening that kind of came out of nowhere.”

A week before the Derby, one of Harper’s representatives reached out to Junk Brands on Instagram to say that Harper liked their headbands and was interested in acquiring a few to potentially wear during the event. Harper was especially interested in the company’s Washington D.C. flag headband and a couple of other designs featuring the American flag. While Harper’s representative made no guarantees — Junk Brands isn’t a Major League Baseball partner, and the league can be a stickler about such things — Miller arranged for the headbands to be delivered.

Miller and his colleagues watched the beginning of the event with greater interest than they normally would. When Harper emerged from the dugout for introductions wearing their D.C. flag headband, they exchanged celebratory text messages. That Harper’s headband became a topic of conversation on Twitter as the Nationals’ slugger outlasted Freddie Freeman, Max Muncy and Kyle Schwarber en route to winning the Home Run Derby was a bonus.

“I’m still not 100 percent convinced it wasn’t rigged, because that was probably the best thing that could have happened for TV, but at the same time, it couldn’t have worked out any better for him,” Lile said of Harper’s come-from-behind win. “We were just fortunate to piggyback on that.”

Miller didn’t prepare any sort of social media marketing blitz in the event that Harper actually wore the headband. Fans immediately wanted to know where they could purchase it, and many of them eventually found their way to Junk Brands’ site. The company, which was founded in 2011, is especially popular in CrossFit circles.

“We’ve definitely seen an uptick [in D.C. flag headband sales], especially from first-time purchasers,” Miller said. “We make all of them in house and we didn’t stock up for that, so our production team has been like, ‘What is going on?’ It’s been good.”

Miller said the D.C. Mayor’s Office reached out earlier this week about acquiring some headbands. On Thursday, Junk Brands closed a deal with the Nationals to have its D.C. flag headband available at Nationals Park beginning Friday. The headbands will be available at the BreakingT retail stand by Section 243, which commemorated Harper’s triumph — and fashionable headwear — with a T-shirt.

“From our perspective, even taking away the marketing and the awareness people have of us now that we wouldn’t have had, I just think it’s really cool that someone like him, who could basically choose to wear anything on the planet, decided to ask us,” Lile said.

Read more on the Nationals:

Nationals players express concerns about Dave Martinez’s handling of the pitching staff

At the Home Run Derby, Bryce Harper and D.C. fell back in love — at least for one night

‘A monumental moment for Washington’: MLB All-Star Game brings D.C. together

Dave Martinez says Bryce Harper has told him ‘numerous times’ he wants to play in D.C.