I don't know where else to put this, and I don't have anything else to write here anyway, so today's entry is stolen directly from Newsday's Letters section of July 15th. All I'll add is that I agree, and note that the problem doesn't seem to have been confined to Newsday.

Having seen Brianna Scurry, a black woman, make the save that decided the Women's World Cup soccer game, I was surprised to see Mia Hamm, a white woman, on the front page July 11 instead of Scurry. I was more surprised not to see a picture of this black woman's dramatic move on the front page of the sports section. Instead, there was a picture of four white women celebrating.

I was even more surprised when I opened the sports section saying that Brandi Chastain (a white woman) "nails a game-winning penalty kick" when every one of the 10 penalty kicks was well shot and the decisive play was Scurry's (a black woman's) save.

And I was most surprised that the article that did discuss Scurry's save led off with a paragraph describing the earlier exploits of three white players ["America the Boot-iful," Sports, July 11]. It did not get around to describing Scurry's move until the sixth paragraph and concluded that that "win was not one masterstroke" by a black woman "(as clutch as Scurry's diving stop was) but, rather, a victory built brick by brick, kick by nerveless kick, by a" mostly white "U.S. squad that has epitomized what it means to be a team."

On second thought, maybe I shouldn't have been surprised.

Edward Bever
Northport