Harper was one of six athletes to appear on the cover of this year’s issue. When he knew he was going to a part of it, he decided to make his body look even better than what it already did. In order to do that, he had to employ a strange diet, per the Washington Post.
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He later explained why he went through so much trouble to look good.
On the final day, before he stripped naked and recorded the results for the world, he rose for one final workout, but when he went to refresh himself, he spit the water out. When he arrived at the field at the University of Nevada Las Vegas for the shoot, his system was completely depleted. He shoved raw, white potatoes down his throat because he knew the glucose and glycine they contained would run straight to his muscles — which yearned for something, any kind of nourishment they could find.
“It makes you pop,” Harper said. “It makes you stand out.”
“I did it for baseball,” he said. “Baseball players have such a bad rap of, like, we don’t work out or we’re not strong or this or that. Guys work so hard in baseball, it’s incredible. But people don’t know that. I wanted to show them, ‘Hey, this is our sport. This is who we are.’”
