NASHVILLE—The black fabric of Chris Maldonado’s jacket does its best to provide something that the short-sleeve jersey can’t as he trots down the third-base line, waits for a media scrum to end and introduces himself a few feet outside of Hawkins Field’s third-base foul line as he shakes the rust off.  Maldonado used to hold court himself from a few feet behind the third base bag, but instead he’s subjected to running down the line expecting to head to the locker room uninterrupted like he’s done so many times in this place over the last two years. He's stopped this time, though. He’s friendly, he gives the kind of handshake that Vanderbilt coach Tim Corbin so often emphasizes as necessary and he–for the first time since 2023–is considered a story worth investing in by an outside source.  Nearly everyone in the building knows who he is and has vivid memories of what he’s done–how about his home run and 2-for-2 in the 2023 SEC Championship game that seemingly indicated he had arrived.…