ANAHEIM, Calif.— Chided. Chastised. Criticized. I am still
trying to determine which word best describes the entertaining
exchange, but, someday, I can tell my grandchildren about the
details of being chided, chastised and criticized by one of the
greatest baseball players during the 2002 World Series. I chided
back and I enjoyed it.  No, the answer to this trivia and
trivial question is not Barry Bonds, an obvious choice. It was
Willie Mays, Bonds's godfather, who tweaked me often before Game
2 between his beloved San Francisco Giants and the Anaheim
Angels because I had the temerity to ask him if Bonds had
elevated himself to such a phenomenal level that he was now the
premier player in history.  It was a simple question, a relevant
question and a question that other reporters were surely about
to ask the 71-year-old Mays, who obviously has days when he
considers himself the greatest living player. But Mays misread
the inquiry, turning from polite and cuddly to ornery and
paranoid. He mostly did it in a pla