Sports

Thousands didn’t pay for pricey Yankees tickets

First things first: Before the Yankees can make roster changes, ownership must decide whether to bring back Mike Francesa as general manager and manager, no?

Anyway, it’s amazing how during the last two Yankees postseasons one of the biggest stories was ignored like a tiny foot wart.

For years, postseason baseball at Yankee Stadium was sold out, top to bottom, up and down. But last year, the first at the Yankees’ fabulous new, reduced-capacity Stadium, thousands of playoffs and World Series seats went unsold. Thousands. Same thing this postseason.

The reason? Pure, sense-defying greed; obscene ticket prices and kick-’em-some-more tack-ons. Still, baseball’s Fehr-less leader, $18 million-per Bud Selig, claims he checked, and found all Yankees tickets to be very affordable. He deserves every penny he’s paid.

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From California reader Davis Distefano: “My 5-year-old and 3-year old were in the room [with Game 6 of the ALCS on TBS] when a promo for ‘The George Lopez Show’ included a Lady Gaga joke that ended with ‘Crazy-ass hats.’

“At no time during the ALCS would TBS’ Ernie Johnson, Ron Darling or John Smoltz have said, ‘ass.’ None would have said, ‘That was a crazy-ass play by Elvis Andrus.’ So why run that promo during those games?”

I suspect Distefano’s question is rhetorical, that he already knows the answer. Had that promo not included “ass,” it would not have been selected for a promo.

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For all their dubious analysis, FOX’s Joe Buck and Tim McCarver clam up when it’s time to scream.

Game 6 of the NLCS, bottom of the first, one out, first and third, Jayson Werth stands at the plate watching his deep fly to left. Then, as the ball is about to be caught, he begins to walk toward first. And, even after replays showing Werth totally disinclined to run to first, McCarver excused him with, “He thought he had it [a home run],” as if that’s legit in his team’s biggest game of the year.

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Were TBS’ Johnson, Darling and Smoltz anti-Yankees — I don’t think so — or were there just more good things to say about how the Rangers played?

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So many locals who blithely adopted the artificially sweetened revisionist history of George Steinbrenner still can’t stomach his NFL version, Jerry Jones.

ESPN’s Herbstreit speaks from head, heart

Men of the week, no contest, to ESPN college football analyst and former Ohio State captain Kirk Herbstreit, and his 10-year-old twin sons, Jake and Tye.

Looking at the sports world through his kids’ eyes, Herbstreit, on Wednesday’s “Mike & Mike” simulcast, addressed the concussions epidemic. He led with his head and his heart.

Herbstreit condemned the needlessly brutal and almost criminal state of modern football, how tackling, common sense and decency have been replaced by the urge and the demand to injure opponents, to wipe them out, to have them leave by ambulance.

And the primary, high-five-happy deliverer of these images and messages, Herbstreit continued, is TV, specifically his own network.

“We at ESPN,” he said, “are as guilty as anyone.”

And after TV, he continued, comes the annual John Madden, NFL-licensed, ESPN-embraced, everyone-take-their-cut video games that teach and preach football as a damn-the-consequences, full-speed-ahead exercise in trying to maim. And he mentioned the Madden game by name.

And Herbstreit sounded genuinely concerned and disturbed that this is what his kids’ sense is football; that it has been pounded into them.

Hey, football has been remorselessly heading in this direction the last 30 years. In 1997, there was internal debate as to whether the NFL should use “Feel the Power!” as its marketing slogan. Those NFL execs opposed to it lost that debate.

Of course they did. Never forget to follow the money.

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Too funny! Cablevision is citing support from politicians in its battle with FOX. Support from politicians is a good thing?

For decades, Cablevision has used subscribers’ money to donate the max to political campaigns and to endow consumer-dismissive cable lobbyists. This is otherwise known as buying influence.

In Connecticut several years ago, Cablevision was revealed to have been providing elected officials free cable. That was a nice perk for those voting on towns’ cable franchise renewals and entry contracts.

And when Al D’Amato was senator from Cablevision’s headquarters, Long Island, he ignored Dolanvision’s monopoly-enriched abuse of customers — his constituents — while Cablevision’s lawyer was D’Amato’s brother, Armand, later convicted of fraud.

Yep, Local Politicians for Cablevision! Now, there’s a battle cry!

‘Real’ tale to be told

Playing for The Citadel 25 years ago tomorrow, Marc Buoniconti was paralyzed when he collided with Herman Jacobs of East Tennessee.

Wow, it has been 25 years. Five years ago — and I don’t want to ruin it for viewers — Buoniconti and Jacobs became housemates in Miami. HBO’s “Real Sports” has the whole story, tomorrow at 10 p.m.

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All these TV and radio tough-guys — Greg Buttle, Bill Cowher, Shannon Sharpe, to name three — who claim you can’t teach football players to play soft ball are missing or ignoring the point. You can’t demand that a defender shove a player out of bounds instead of blasting him out of bounds? That he use his arms to tackle?

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Guess there will no more computerized helmet-to-helmet explosions on FOX for a while.

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With no Jets or Giants to sweat, if I’m calling the shots for CBS, yesterday, I’d have kept NYC with Bills-Ravens in overtime rather than cut to the start of Patriots-Chargers.

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Forget pumpkin-picking. On fall Saturdays try upset-hunting. And the biggest college football upsets are found in the more obscure TV places because the muscle networks don’t want anticipated blowouts. Thus, Saturday, MSG-Plus carried Iowa State, 21-point underdog, winning at Texas.

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More Terrell Owens from CBS’ pregame yesterday. Where do these TV folks come up with these fresh new ideas?

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Nurse! Just when we no longer have to choose between John Sterling and Joe Morgan, CBS and FOX, yesterday at 1 p.m., forced us to choose between Dan Dierdorf and Daryl Johnston. So many doubtful know-it-all speeches it was like, “Sundays With Fran-say-so.”