CAN FINCH SELL IOC ON SOFTBALL?(Sports)("Snyde" Remarks)(Column) - The Post-Standard (Syracuse, NY)

Byline: BOB SNYDER STAFF WRITER

As I said here last week, Carmelo Anthony puts a smiling face on our Olympic men's basketball team.

But there's no Olympic face I'd rather watch than that of Jennie Finch.

Her height - 6-foot-1 - means she's probably taller than Allen Iverson. But she's not in the backcourt for our Olympic women's hoop team.

Finch is part-model, part-analyst.

And Finch - when in the circle - may be the hottest softball pitcher in the world. On USA Softball's 'Aiming for Athens' exhibition tour, she won her first 12 decisions, posted an anemic earned run average of 0.09 and gaudy strikeout average of 19.19 per nine innings.

In one at-bat against Finch, the Cardinals' Albert Pujols fanned.

So, as it once again faces review by the International Olympic Committee as an Olympic sport following the Athens Games, who better to make the ultimate sales pitch for softball?

Just ask Arizona Diamondbacks minor-league pitcher Casey Daigle, who'll wed Ms. Finch in the fall.

National goal: Two Syracuse Blitz soccer teams - the Blizzard (under-19 boys) and Vortex (under-15 girls) - are competing in this week's U.S. Youth Soccer Region I Championships in Kingston, R.I.

The teams won New York West State Cup competition. Regional winners at University of Rhode Island advance to the National Championships, July 20-25 at Disney's Wide World of Sports Complex in Lake Buena Vista, Fla.

Strickland goes corporate: Syracuse grad Bill Strickland ('81), a former SU assistant sports Information director, later media relations boss/associate AD at Massachusetts, and currently working toward completion of an MBA from SU, is joining college sports' largest media rights management company.

Strickland has exited UMass for Collegiate Images, a Fort Lauderdale outfit, as its first vice president of business development/sales.

Deja vu, all over again: That's what Yogi Berra would say about the SkyChiefs.

What is about Syracuse baseball, circa the 1990s and this millennium? In 12 of the last 15 years, including this season's basement ballclub, our town's Triple-A franchise has been going, going, gone by the time school lets out for the summer.

Nice timing!

Makes you wonder - and this from the writer who was the first to push for the Blue Jays to enter, the Yankees to depart (before George Steinbrenner dropped the hammer on Syracuse 27 years ago) - if it soon won't be time for another change.

If Major League Baseball doesn't opt to roll the dice in Las Vegas, and instead transplants the Montreal Expos in Washington, D.C., or northern Virginia, could the Mets be enticed into leaving Norfolk, Va., for P&C Stadium?

Fore, please!: First, there was Rick Smith-designed Shenendoah. Then, Kaluhyat, created by Robert Trent Jones Jr.

Now, Atunyote.

The third of Turning Stone Resort and Casino's golf trilogy, Atunyote unofficially opened Thursday. The Tom Fazio design is the track the Oneida Nation hopes will attract a professional tour event.

Atunyote (un-DUNE-yote), an Oneida word meaning 'the eagle,' offers a secluded setting off Route 31 in Vernon, a two-mile entryway, a course with vast, open stretches, gently rolling hills, rock formations, preserved deadwood swamp, stream and small waterfalls, lakes and ponds.

Director of golf Bob O'Brian described Atunyote as 'a traditional parkland setting ... the perfect venue for players who appreciate the history of the game and want an unforgettable golfing experience.'

To e-mail: bsnyder@syracuse.com