(AP Photo/Matt York)

It didn’t take long after his debut in the minor leagues last year that the Nationals’ highly-prized outfielder prospect Bryce Harper is, ahem, one of the more outspoken personalities in the team’s organization. And with Harper looking to nab a spot on the opening-day roster, he’s getting even more exposure.

A brief profile in the April issue of GQ calls Harper “the most entertaining prospect since Babe Ruth.” Why is Deadspin founding editor Will Leitch so wrapped up in Harper’s magnetism?

Just look at the quotes. It probably has something to do with the exuberant, distended ways Harper says “fuck.” Just read Leitch’s lede:

“Fuuuuuuck!!!” This is Bryce Harper—the erstwhile pastime’s answer to LeBron James, Mozart child prodigy of the great game. The Washington Nationals’ 19-year-old prospect is taking big cuts in an impromptu batting-cage session on the campus of UC Irvine, all for my benefit. I wanted to see the supposed perfect swing in action. I wanted to witness baseball’s next Barry Bonds. And I’m suddenly a little worried that he’s just broken his hand.

But that’s not the only bit of pottymouthed braggadocio the $9.9 million rookie shows off. His hand might be a little sore, but he just keeps swinging away, which Leitch seems to find pretty badass:

Now that Harper’s the one hurt, he takes a hop-step out of the box. Again: “Fuuuuuuck!!!” A violent toss of his custom-made Marucci bat—inscribed with LUKE 1:37 (“For with God nothing shall be impossible”)—across the batting cage. “Fuck it, I’m done.” Harper shakes his hands vigorously and shoves them into a pile of infield dirt adjacent to the cage. “I didn’t know I was hitting today, and I don’t have my goddamned gloves,” he says. “It hurts like a dick.”

And just why is Harper poised to be the baddest bro at Nationals Park come opening day? He tells Leitch his explosive competitiveness on the diamond comes from playing football as a kid: “That first knock of the game, you are going on kickoff and you are just trying to smack somebody just as hard as you can. That’s how I play baseball. I want to hit you. I want to run your ass over. Sorry.”

So Nationals opponents be warned. Bryce Harper is going to run your ass over. But we’ve know for a while that despite Harper’s innate talent, he’s also a young, obnoxious, bratty jerk, as depicted in this scene from last summer in which he was tossed from a Harrisburg (Pa.) Senators game for arguing with the umpire: