What's in a Name?

The winter is dragging on, the temperatures sticking tightly to the lower end of the scale. It's starting to feel old, but we're only in February. I've been looking forward to summer, applying for jobs and combing for signs of baseball. But there are no baseball stories this time of the year, only obituaries for greats I never knew. Spring training is coming though, and I am waiting expectantly, deep in my Maine winter.

If you could have any baseball player's autograph, whose would it be?

"Au autograph is so impersonal," Mac says, a lifelong Red Sox fan who cheers for the Mets at times. Plus, he already has a few Red Sox legends. "It's just a name."

Fine, if you could meet any baseball player, who would it be?

David Ortiz. He seems like he would be so much fun to be around, a genuinely great guy. As of opposed to Manny, who is temperamental, whose fun seems less real.

Roommate Amy (not to be confused with me) chooses Jackie Robinson, who she calls "the first black guy to play baseball."

Father surprises me. He makes no mention of history or childhood heroes, claiming he's forgotten them all. "Chien-Ming Wang," he says. Why? "Because I know him." If not Wang, then Schilling.

As for me, I don't care what my home state is or where I go to school. I want to meet Mariano Rivera. His greatness and class are undeniable, and even Mac, with his chemistry book and Red Sox blanket on his lap, excuse the choice of a Yankee. That means something coming from a bleeder, whose red blood means more to him than it does most people.