BRYCE HARPER

I've always talked to the media. I'm pretty respectful to the media.

I went to school, but nobody really noticed me. I just came to school, didn't dress up or anything - just a ghost. I just worked out and went out to the field and went the baseball route. That's how I've always been my whole life.

I think I play center field better than I do anywhere else. I have enough speed and enough reaction to know where the ball goes off the bat.

I eat ice cream all the time.

I want my teammates to know I have their backs.

Sleep is huge. That's your biggest way of recovering. In baseball, it's such a hard sleep schedule during the season, but you try to do the best you can. Because you can take all the protein drinks, you can do all these things, but your recovery is your sleep.

I want to play the game hard. I want to ram it down your throat, put you into left field when I'm going into second base.

It's not like I'm out eating McDonald's and Del Taco every night. I eat good: my mom fixes dinner every single night - baked chicken, fish - she cooks a great meal every single night.

I always wanted to be a major-league baseball player.

I really want to have a possibility of going into the Hall of Fame one day. I think that's huge with a lot of baseball writers and old school guys. Of course, that's not the main goal - the main goal is winning a World Series. Hall of Fame is so far away. It's just something I've always thought about doing. I want to be as clean as I can.

I can't just go to McDonald's after I'm done working out. I'm going to treat my body like it's the only body I'm ever going to have. I'm going to make sure it's strong and it's good. I'm really going to work hard every single day.

I like eating the right way, doing things the right way. I never had to have my dad come and say, 'Hey, you have to get back to the gym' or, 'Hey, you're eating wrong.'

My dad, he worked rebar, an ironworker. Watching my pops get up every single morning, going into work, working hard - I think that really made me want to work that hard, wanted to make me get up early and go for a run or get a lift in or get some extra hitting in and really try to better myself every day.

D.C. fans, I think, are so good. They just come up to me, and they're so nice and so polite and just, 'Hey, I hope you have a great career,' and 'How are you doing, everything's good?' That's pretty much where they leave it at.

Seriously, it takes me, like, 30 minutes to do my hair before a game.

I want to get on base every single time I get up there. Whether it's a walk or a base hit, I really don't care how I want to get on base. I just want to be on.

I love working hard; I think people know that.

It's funny to me because everyone says I'm injury prone. That's hilarious to me because I've never blown a hammy or a shoulder or anything like that, knock on wood.

The full thing is God-given. I don't know how I got my swing or what I did. I know I worked every single day. I know I did as much as I could with my dad. But I never really looked at anything mechanical. There was nothing really like, 'Oh, put your hands here.' It was, 'Where are you comfortable? You're comfortable here; hit from there.'

I love to train. Always have.

I love the way people talk crap. I hear it all the time. 'Overrated.' 'You suck.' I'll just do something to shut them up, like, 'I'll show you.'

I know more about UFC than the wrestling circuit. I think everybody's a pretty good guy in the UFC.

I was probably 12 or 13 when I started doing pushups, situps, dips.

People say, 'Weren't you deprived of your childhood?' No way. I would not take anything back at all. Everything about it was great. I got to go places, meet people, play baseball against older kids and better competition. I had a great time.

I don't wish that I was playing football. I love baseball, and the way I play is like it's my last day ever playing it. I do like football, but you've got to respect that it's not like baseball.