A consumer’s guide to the best and worst of sports media and merchandise. Ground rules: If it can be read, played, heard, observed, worn, viewed, dialed or downloaded, it’s in play here.

What: Breakfasts of the Women’s World Cup and Major League Home Run Champions

So much historic athletic achievement in the late 1990s, only so many Wheaties boxes to go around.

Which partially explains the presence of Mark McGwire on the cover of a box of generic toasted oat rings (pseudo Cheerios, in other words) and why the 1999 U.S. Women’s World Cup championship soccer team has its own breakfast cereal, appetizingly titled, “U.S. Soccer Golden Goals.”

Another reason: Both cereals are being sold to help raise money for worthwhile causes.

The McGwire “Limited Edition” cereal, available at Safeway, Vons and Pavilions stores for an eight-week period, raises money for St. Louis Cardinal Manager Tony La Russa’s Animal Rescue Foundation. According to the box-top information, “over 15% of the sales of this package” will be donated to La Russa’s organization, which places rescued stray pets with abused children.

“Golden Goals” features on the box members of the U.S. women’s soccer team celebrating after this summer’s World Cup triumph, along with a notation: “Buy this Cereal and Help Youth Soccer.”

According to side-panel details, for every box of “Golden Goals” sold, Quaker Oats will donate 3% of net sales to the U.S. Soccer Federation Foundation.

As for the cereals themselves, well, McGwire would seem to deserve better than a few bowlfuls of plain-wrap knockoff Cheerios. All those little zeros staring back at you--can’t be good for a slugger’s subliminal well-being.

“Golden Goals” does what it can to play around with the soccer motif. The cereal looks like little soccer balls and tastes, coincidentally or not, like honey-sweetened Kix. (Kix? Kicks? Get it, kids?)

The ever-important back-of-the-box reading material includes a game-by-game recap of Team USA’s march to the World Cup title, sanitized, of course, for young readers. Goalkeeper Briana Scurry is lauded as the “hero” of the championship-game shootout, but no mention is made of Scurry leaving her line early to get a “competitive edge” on the Chinese penalty specialists. Suggested future promotion: “FIFA Rule Book--Free Inside!”