A Google search for "Mick Doherty" produces nearly 5,000 returns. While many of those links are to my own work, here are a few of the other key Mick Links:

I Do Not Play Hammered Dulcimer
Portland, Oregon resident Mick Doherty marked 25 years in the music business in 2004, and according to online sources has composed music for film, theater and television. Mick also performs with The Oregon Shadow Theatre and The Cascadia Folk Quartet. Take a moment to meet Mick's Trail Band or, hey, be a good sport and order Old Time Hammered Dulcimer Favorites by the tastefully named "Mick Doherty & Friends." Under no circumstances is the latter to tbe confused with the unfortunate period during which the very bad college band in which I played keyboard, not hammered dulcimer, was accidentally referred to in a program as "Doc Doherty & Friends" instead of by its embarrassingly cheezy actual name, "The Wayward Dreamers."

I Also Do Not Play Soccer
I sure like the sound of Mick Doherty, Professional Football Player, but in this case it's world football (soccer), and the Mick in question was a midfielder for Wycomb, Reading, Slough, Yeovil and Weymouth in the early 1980s. We lose track of Mick online after a learning that he moved into "non-League" football after the 1982-1983 season, when I was a junior in high school.

Or Rugby For That Matter
So we've met a musician and a footballer ... naturally, there's an entirely different Mick Doherty who writes songs about football. In this case, it's Australian Rugby League Football, and the song is by Michael Anthony Doherty, who goes by "Mick" and by his initials — "M.A.D."

Sure, I Like Sports ...
As best I can tell, still another Mick Doherty was "sacked" by Britain's Royal Mail (the post office) after alleged involvement in football violence, prior to the 2000 UEFA Cup Final in Copenhagen. This does not appear to the same Mick the Midfielder we met just a couple of paragraphs back. Although a tribunal ruled the dismissal "unfair" and ordered the post office to reinstate Mick, with £15,000 compensation, it is unclear if that ever happened. As a fellow sports fan, I sympathize with the case, especially as Mick's e-mail address suggests he has the tasteful nickname of "Doc."

Update! Through the wonders of the Internet, the inevitable coming together of and world domination by Mick Dohertys everywhere has begun. This e-mail arrived Nov. 11, 2004: "Dear Mick: I eventually received £125,000 compensation from the Post Office and still regularly attend most Arsenal football matches where I am known as 'The Doc' a nickname I acquired during my amateur boxing career. Nice to get in touch with a namesake! Cheers, Mick Doherty"

My Sister was at Berkeley, Not Me
Back on this side of the pond, we meet Mick Doherty, Vice President of Sales for ScanAlert, home to "Hacker Safe Shopping." (Presumably this means the opposite of "a site where hackers can shop safely.") Mick was educated at Cal-Berkeley, among other West Coast institutions of higher learning, but given his "37 years of experience in sales and marketing," he probably wasn't a student when my sister was teaching political science at Cal in the early 1990s. Mick and I are both apparently in the "Web publishing" field, but he's working in sales and security, and I'm working on content. Oh well, as long as we're both — homonym alert! — "content."

OK, This Guy isn't Even Real
Back to Australia, farmer Mick Doherty had some 1994 trouble with his parking fines ... wait a minute! This Mick Doherty is a television character, a brief recurring role in the first season of the award-winning Australian crime drama Blue Heelers, played by Keith Eden. Blue Heelers profiles the lives and investigations of the police in the small Victorian town of Mt. Thomas and won four consecutive "Logies" as "Most Popular Series" from 1997-2000.

Two More Micks in Oz
Okay, maybe having a "Mick Doherty" on an Australian TV show is something like having a "John Smith" on a show in the states. Two more Aussie Micks show up on Web search: in this PDF, find an article by Michael "Mick" Doherty on "Veneers" for WoodCentral's Badger Pond (something to do with woodworking) and then there's the Perth artist Mick (actually "O'Doherty") who graces an audio file to talk about "The Monaro Show" and the car that inspires much of the art he creates.

What Would Twain Say About This?
Sure, Twain's Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn had the misfortune — actually, given the alternative, the extremely good fortune — of attending their own funerals. Twain himself once uttered the famous line about "reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated." Still, it's a little odd to read "The recent death of the late Mick Doherty ..." The notice is from the Nov. 17, 2001 edition of the weekly County Clare Champion in Ireland.

Not Mick, and Still Not Me
Most all of the Mick Dohertys out there — including me — are actually named Michael. For whatever reason, though, the occasional Michael Doherty does not opt for the tasteful nickname "Mick." Like these guys:

"My Name is Michael ..."
A Google search for "Michael Doherty" produces more than 11,000 returns. Selected highlights are listed here alphabeti ... wait, that would be redundant, wouldn't it? In order of their ranking on Google, then, except for that first one.

• Dr. Michael Doherty, Bowling Green State University, Department of Psychology (Ret.) ... has also been married to my mother since 1958. Senior to my Junior — but still not me.
• Dr. Michael Doherty, University of the Pacific, Department of Computer Science has interests in software architecture for gaming and environmental expertise databases.
• Dr. Michael Doherty wrote this essay "Folklore: A Veterinary Perspective" for McGlinchey Summer School. He is senior lecturer in Large Animal Medicine at University College Dublin, where Senior to my Junior also briefly was on faculty.
• Dr. Michael Doherty is at University of Central Lancashire Law School. Teaching interests are European law, environmental law, civil liberties and the law relating to forensic science.
• Dr. Michael Doherty, another law professor, is at the University of Glamorgan, Wales. Research interests are in the criminal justice system and criminology.
• Michael Doherty doesn't get "Dr." before his name yet, but he's close. He's closing out doctoral work in statistics at Penn State — a subject Senior has taught for years, incidentally.
• Michael Doherty is an assistant lecturer in the Department of Accounting at the University of Wyoming with specialization in information system and e-business.
• Michael Doherty is staff counsel to BCPIAC, the British Columbia Public Interest Advocacy Centre and teaches teaches Environmental Law at Langara College in Vancouver.
• Michael Doherty is Computing Officer and Network Developer, Corporate Information Infrastructure Services at the University of Ulster, Londonderry, Northern Ireland.
• Michael Doherty is the president of Doherty, Scotti & Company, a firm specializing in private equity and assisting entrepreneurs in gaining visibility in the public markets in Belgium.
• Michael Doherty is a contributor to the weekly Toronto magazine Eye Weekly, apparently dedicated primarily to nightlife and local arts.
• Michael Doherty is a Hollywood film editor whose filmography includes Captive (1998), New Blood (2000), Wrong Number (2001) and Spreading Ground (2002). Oh, and Judgment in 2001. It is only coincidental that Senior's career specialty has been "judgment and decision making."
• Michael Doherty, in this case, is a brief biographical branch on "The Palmer Family Tree" in England. "Mickey" was born in Derry around 1875.
• Michael Doherty is a systems analyst with a degree from Trinity College Dublin. Quick math — says he was born in 1963 and is 34 years old — means the page was last updated in 1997.
• Michael Doherty is an Australian artist living in Perth. He is not to be confused with Mick O'Doherty, listed above, who is an Australian artist living in Perth.
• Michael Doherty won South African Cricket Annual Cricketer of the Year for 1972; he enjoyed a long career, playing for Griqualand West, BW Burrow's XI and Impalas from 1964-1985.
• Well, what do you know? Another e-mail from another Michael Doherty, this one living in Sydney NSW in Australia.

Stepping Up to the "Mike"
A Google search for "Mike Doherty" produces more than 4,000 returns.

• Mike Doherty played soccer at SUNY-Binghamton from 1979-1982 and was elected to the school's Athletic Hall of Fame in 1999. Now the head coach at Colgate.
• Mike Doherty is the owner of Doherty Motorsports Thunder Truck Off-Road Racing in Tucson, Ariz. — "a successful and professional off-road racing team."
• Mike Doherty not only has been with "Schuh Stores" since its inception, but actually came up with the name for the self-styled #1 British "fashion footwear retailer."
• Mike Doherty is Vice President, North America Telecoms Practice for Ovum — "the largest European headquartered advisor on telecoms, software and IT services" — located in Boston.
• Mike Doherty — at the tastefully named Web site www.mikedoherty.info — is the Clallam County Commissioner (3rd District) with an office in Port Angeles, Wash.
• Mike Doherty is a southern Ohio realtor listed on the Web site for Hoeting Realtors, specializing in Western and Northwestern Hamilton County, the Cincinnati area.

What's Up, "Doc"?
"Doc" is a common nickname for anyone with any form of the surname "Doherty" (Dougherty, Daugherty, O'Doherty, etc.) because it is a shortened form of the frequent pronunciation "Dockerty." However, I picked up the nickname in college simply because my initials were "M.D." A Google search for "Doc Doherty" produces nearly 200 returns.

• Gerald P. "Doc" Doherty was inducted into the University of Delaware Athletics Hall of Fame in 1998; "A standout in both football and baseball, Doherty was one of Delaware's most outstanding athletes during the 1940s."
• Wilfred Thomas "Doc" Doherty was one of the founding trustees and later president of the Robert A. Welch Foundation, a Texas-based philanthropic organization that supports chemical research. An award is given in his name each year.
• Chris "Doc" Doherty is "the doctor of groovology," a Canadian recording artist now offering "12 Original Doc Tunes" on his CD, "Lazy Boy."
• Kevin "Doc" Doherty plays for the Oxford United Stars in the Northern Ireland Intermediate Football (soccer) League.