She Figures That Hamm Messed Up All-Around

Sally Jenkins of the Washington Post says Paul Hamm is missing the big picture by not giving his men’s gymnastics all-around gold medal to South Korean Yang Tae Young.

“Such a gesture would carve his name into the marble of sports history, and people would talk about him decades from now. Instead, he’s an asterisk,” Jenkins writes.

“If he had gone over to the South Korean and pressed his gold medal into the guy’s hand, and said, ‘I don’t care what the rules say, you deserve this,’ he would have the instant book contract, the big commercial endorsements, and speaking engagements for big money to the end of time.”

Isn’t that the American Dream?

*

Trivia time: Nineteen years ago today, Dwight Gooden of the New York Mets became baseball’s youngest 20-game winner -- 20 years 9 months. Who held that distinction before Gooden?

*

What about their shirts? The September issue of Playboy features eight U.S. Olympians. According to Jeff Gordon of the St. Louis Post, that can mean only one thing:

“This ‘Women of the Olympics’ feature will remind readers that world-class athletes take off their pants one leg at a time, just like normal people.”

*

Kobe who? According to Internet search engine Lycos, Kobe Bryant has lost the top spot on the list of most-searched athletes on the Internet. The new No. 1 is U.S. Olympic swimmer Amanda Beard.

Bryant dropped to sixth. Nos. 2-5: Russian gymnast Svetlana Khorkina, U.S. high jumper Amy Acuff, U.S. gymnast Carly Patterson and tennis player Anna Kournikova.

Nothing like scantily clad female Olympians to divert attention from a sexual assault case.

*

Let her play: U.S. Women’s Open champion Meg Mallon told Doug Ferguson of Associated Press that people shouldn’t criticize 14-year-old Michelle Wie for playing so much golf.

“I think you guys all forgot what 14 was like,” Mallon said. “At 14, we were doing nothing but getting in trouble. We were bored. We were telling our parents we didn’t like them. She’s getting more life experiences to help her than any 14-year-old sitting around on a computer, doing things they probably shouldn’t be doing.”

*

Looking back: On this day in 1996, Tiger Woods won an unprecedented third consecutive U.S. Amateur Championship, beating Steve Scott on the 38th hole after coming back from five down with 16 to play and two down with three to go.

*

Trivia answer: Bob Feller, who was 20 years 10 months when he won his 20th for Cleveland in 1939.

*

And finally: Amy Shipley of the Washington Post reports that U.S. sprinter Muna Lee is being called Myuna Lee by the English-speaking public address announcer at Olympic Stadium.

The Greek announcer in the booth was aghast, waving his hands and pointing emphatically to a body part when the English announcer correctly pronounced her name.

He later explained that the proper English pronunciation, Moona, closely resembled a very bad Greek word.