For This Observer, Yao Is Now the Man

Barbara Barker in Newsday: “What is the best thing you could do for the future of the NBA? Force every aspiring professional player -- from Division I stars right down to the sixth man on your local CYO team -- to watch Yao Ming as much as possible this season.

“ ‘The guy is what our league, as far as people, should be about,’ said Jeff Van Gundy, the former Knick coach and current TNT analyst. ‘Everyone in the game from youth teams on up can learn a lot from the way he approaches the game with both enthusiasm and humility.

“ ‘He’s a very good player who’s come in with more hype than any rookie in a long, long time. And he’s lived up to it and surpassed it because of his unbelievable demeanor.’ ”

Trivia time: When did Tiger Woods win his first PGA Tour event?

Do your own thing: Golfer Sergio Garcia sustained a hamstring injury while trying to kick an Australian Rules football at a charity event in Perth.

Said Steve Hummer of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: “Let this serve as just another warning to golfers everywhere to, please, not attempt anything remotely athletic.”

League leaders: Dwight Perry in the Seattle Times: “Atlanta Thrasher goaltenders are last in the NHL in goals-against average (3.49) and first in goalies lost to groin injuries (three).

“ ‘We’re like a major-league baseball team,’ Thrasher Coach Bob Hartley said. ‘We have a rotation of four starters. Usually they get sore shoulders. With this year, it’s been groins.’ ”

More Perry: “Pete Rose failed to make the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame because he wasn’t listed on 75% of the selectors’ ballots. Rumor has it that Pete’s day wasn’t a total loss, though. He had the under.”

And, this: “Given their trouble hitting holes last season, [University of Washington] tailbacks should have known that campus cops could easily identify any of them who tried to crash a frat party.

“After all, how many partygoers hit the door jam on the way in and fall forward for a one-yard gain?”

What’s next? After Rose was denied admittance to the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame, Jay Leno wondered, “What, is he betting on hockey now too?”

Isn’t it? Elliott Harris in the Chicago Sun-Times: “Nobody wants to say the Bengals have been a poorly run franchise, but until recently they thought the NFL combine was a piece of farm machinery.”

The talk: Steve Rosenbloom of the Chicago Tribune on the White Sox’s Frank Thomas: “Thomas had to talk to the media to say he was no longer talking to the media. That is so Frank.”

Trivia answer: The Las Vegas Invitational in 1996.

And finally: Jerry Greene in the Orlando Sentinel: “That’s right, you can’t keep Tonya Harding down. Bouncing back from her split-decision defeat in the boxing ring, our Tonya will return to casino action sometime this year as the theme for a new slot machine.

“My suggestion is that the jackpot should not be for getting three cherries but for three hubcaps instead.”

-- Mal Florence