"One loved beer, hot dogs and women. The other is fastidious about diet, exercise and rest. One had a personality as large as his belly. The other is about as demonstrative as a batting-cage pitching machine.

Babe Ruth died 21 years before Mariano Rivera was born, so we can only wonder how these two different men would have occupied the same real estate inside the Yankees' clubhouse. Best buddies? Distant teammates?

"You know what?" one woman with the bloodlines to speculate on this question, Linda Ruth Tosetti, said over the phone Wednesday. "I bet my grandfather would have gotten along with him just fine. Don't forget, he traveled the world as a baseball ambassador.

"And he could recognize a great ballplayer." "