Some athletes are blessed with perfect names.

Take Rance Mulliniks, of the Toronto Blue lays. If my name was Rance Mulliniks. I wouldn't ask for anything else out of life.

Most athletes, however, aren't so lucky. Their names lack that little spark so essential to a successful sports career.

George Herman Ruth would have been a loser; Babe Ruth will never be forgotten.

And just about the only exciting thing on the Red Sox this year is Oil Can Boyd--his name even more than his admittedly fine pitching.

Nicknames are an integral part of all sports, whether at the professional or amateur level.

So while baseball fans all across the country scream for "Yen-Yen" Moreno, fans right here in Cambridge have their own bevy of fun nicknames cheer--those of the Harvard softball team.

"Nicknames make people feel like part of the team," Co-Captain Ann "Trees" Wilson says. "If your nickname happens to annoy you, what can you do?"

"I think it's nice because it helps bond the team, when we're all calling each other names that we have picked," pitcher Janet "Lefty" Dickerman says. "It's funny, though, because all nicknames come from stupid things."

Contrary to Dickerman's claim, however, not all nicknames have "stupid" beginnings--some are downright intellectual in origin.

Mary Paul and Lisa Rowning were in "Art and Politics" lecture one day when they saw slide of the Goddess Fortuna. Paul began calling her teammate "Fortuna," and the name stuck.

"They only saw," Co-captain briefly," Co-Captain Joan Cunningham, explains. "It was probably a goddess-like figure, and it probably had blonde hair." Rowning (a blonde) concedes, "I couldn't do much about it."

Another nickname partially related to hair color is pitcher Gerri Rubin's.

"One day she wore red Vuarnets, and a batting helmet, and she was running around like a blonde bombshell," Paul says. "We call Gerri 'Bomb,' and sometimes that turns into 'Cherrybomb.'

"I was just being crazy one day at practice," Rubin protests.