According to this AP story, reliever Gabe White "told the Minnesota Twins Friday he's retiring."
Several things came to mind when I read this...
First, it is a minor upset that he told the Twins he was retiring, rather than the other way around. Mediocre journeymen relievers generally end up being shown the door, not the other way around...if anything, this makes me a tad suspicious about the merits of the Twins organization. It is like that episode of Seinfeld, where Jerry had to break up with a girl because not only had she dated Newman, but Newman had dumped her.
At the very least, the Twins should be issuing a press release claiming that it was a mutual decision, and that the Twins and White were going to "still be friends."
Secondly, it seems like you want your son to become a good major league baseball player, calling him "Gabe" appears to be a bad plan. There have been 7 "Gabe"s in major league history, and Gabe White is neck-and-neck with Gabe Kapler for the honor of being the best "Gabe" ever, which doesn't reflect well on the baseball playing "Gabe"s.
In fact, the name "Gabe" itself doesn't seem to be a real harbinger of success. You have Gabe Kaplan, of course, who starred on one of the greatest television shows of all time, "Welcome Back Kotter," before packing it in to play poker professionally. And as best as I can tell, that's the only famous Gabe out there...if you run a Google search for "Gabe," there's a whole page for of people I've never heard of (and, as best I can tell, don't really want to know anything about).
So stick with Gabriel...there's Gabriel Byrne, Peter Gabriel, Roman Gabriel, the slave who led a rebellion a couple of hundred years ago, the angel...it is a pretty cool name.
And strangely, Gabe White and Gabe Kapler have one of those six-degrees-of-Kevin-Bacon type connections. Gabe White was traded by the Rockies, along with Luke Hudson, to the Reds for Dennys Reyes and Pokey Reese after the 2001 season. The Rockies then traded Reese to Boston for Scott Hatteburg, whom they then non-tendered, and traded Reyes later that summer (along with Todd Hollandsworth) to the Rangers for Jason Romano and...Gabe Kapler!!!
Amazing how these things happen, isn't it? What are the chances that Dennys Reyes would be traded twice for the two greatest Gabes in baseball history within a 9 month span.
Anyway, I'm glad Gabe White retired, because I kept getting him mixed up with Rick White and Matt White, and this should make it easier to keep everyone straight.
Also, Gabe White has (according to Baseball-Reference.com) made over $10 million as a major league ballplayer in his career, and that makes me sort of bitter and jealous, so I'd just as soon he not make any more money from it.