JUPITER, Fla. — It probably started on the flight to spring training a few years ago.

On the back page of Vanity Fair, the magazine always runs its “Proust Questionnaire”. It is basically a series of provocative questions that help reveal a person’s qualities, a person’s values, but also, hopefully, a person’s personality. (You can check out the questions asked here, at the magazine’s official website.) It’s one of the first-read pages of the magazine for me, and it was always something I thought would be fun to try in this baseball arena.

For the past couple years, I’ve been trying to toy with how to adapt that questionnaire and apply it to spring training, or to ballplayers in general. All of those questions wouldn’t fit, and there has be some playful and baseball-based questions heaped in there, too. Fiddling around a few weeks ago, I took two parts Proust Questionnaire, three parts baseball and a dash of Sports Illustrated’s pop culture questions and blended together a series of questions to ask ballplayers this spring. Figured it would be a good exercise. Already a few players have answered — CC Sabathia drew a crowd in the Yankees clubhouse the other day as he went through about 20 questions — and the blog offers a great forum for this.

If you have suggestions for fine-tuning the questions, please pass them along. It’s take me some time to strike the right balance, and I hope to make it better. Hope to put up a couple a week through spring.

First up for the P-DQ: St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Adam Wainwright.

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Advice you’ve received from a parent that sticks with you …

Mind your manners.

Memorable Christmas or holiday gift your received …

One time my brother had this really old basketball that I thought was the coolest basketball in the world. They asked me what I wanted for Christmas, and I told them I wanted a ball just like that, the ball that he had. So, he wrapped up that ball and gave it to me, and I was really disappointed that got an old basketball. But it was a joke. He had a new one that he gave me. He got me with that one.

Word or phrase you use to often …

I have to watch all of my words now. I’ve got two little kids now. How about, “I can’t.” One time saying that is too much.

Favorite superhero?

Wolverine

South Park or The Simpsons?

Simpsons

Greatest achievement?

Having my children.

Current State of mind?

At ease.

Your greatest extravagance or indulgence?

I love barbeque. I would rather eat barbeque than anything, every day.

Favorite ballplayer growing up?

Steve Avery. Tom Glavine. Greg Maddux. John Smoltz.

First car?

1989 Jeep Cherokee

Current car?

2008 GMC Sierra 2500

Place you would like to visit before you die …

I’d like to go to two places before I die. I’d like to go to Rome, and I’d like to go to Israel.

I tune out when people talk about …

The NBA

I wish I knew how to …

Play guitar really well.

Who would be in your Fav Five?

Bobby Flay. Greg Maddux. My wife. Georgia football coach Mark Richt. My brother.

Most embarrassing song on your iPod?

Great question. I’ve got no embarrassing songs on my iPod that I can think of. (Ed. note – then “We Will Rock You” begins playing in clubhouse.) Oh, “Fat-Bottomed Girls,” Queen.

Movie you’ll stop to watch whenever it comes on …

Tombstone.

Sing in the shower or in the car?

Anything country, all the time.

You know you’re in the minors when …

Your paycheck doesn’t have a comma in it.

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