Probation and the loss of scholarships is only part of the punishment the NCAA handed Notre Dame football, my sources tell me. The Irish must also say five Our Fathers and three Hail Marys.

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Did anyone else notice that three of the 10 active athletes added to the International Olympic Committee are from the former Soviet Union (pole vaulter Sergei Bubka, swimmer Alexander Popov and cross-country skier Vladimir Smirnov) - and only one is from the U.S. (volleyball player Robert Ctvrtlik? Not to be ethnocentric or anything, but what's up with that?

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Former Canadian Olympian Angela Schneider (silver medal, rowing, 1984), who now teaches ethics at the University of Western Ontario, on the "new" IOC: "They set up an ethics commission, but there's not a single person on it who is an ethicist or trained and educated in ethics. There may be people there who have lived ethical lives, but that doesn't make them experts in applying ethics. I've lived a healthy life, but that doesn't qualify me to practice medicine."

Sounds like she's offering her services, and the IOC would be wise to accept.

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News item: Orioles acquire outfielder Stephen Larkin, Barry's younger brother.

Comment: Now if they can just pick up Mike Maddux for the bullpen . . .

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The Washington Post has been cozying up to Dan Snyder from Day One, but I didn't realize how bad it had gotten until I read an item in a recent City Paper. In the Post's Nov. 25 editions, the weekly reported, a negative reference to Snyder was deleted from Norman Chad's syndicated betting column.

In all the other newspapers that run Chad's column, the following crack appeared: "When Redskins foul up and TV shows punk owner Daniel M. Snyder in his box, he's got that `Where's my rattle?' look on his face."

The Posties, not wanting to ruffle Danny's feathers, edited the sentence to read: "Redskins owner Daniel Snyder rarely looks happy when TV cameras zoom in on him."

I don't know about you, but I kinda like the original version.

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Don't forget to visit the Redskins' official Web site at www.washingtonpost.com. My favorite Snyder smooch last week was the story extolling his ability to wring every last dollar out of the franchise. I particularly loved this sentence: "Aided by the highest average ticket price in the NFL, which was in place before Snyder bought the team, the Redskins earn enough money to easily cover the $495 million debt that the new owner took on when he bought the franchise."

The key phrase, of course, is, which was in place before Snyder bought the team. Yeah, right. Like Dan never would have charged that much himself. What do you think, folks, are ticket prices going down from here or up?

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Like one of my newspaper buddies says, "If the Post had covered Watergate the way it's covering the Redskins, Nixon would still be in office."

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You don't have to worry about The Washington Times pulling any punches with Snyder. …