Sports

Mistakes second nature for ESPN

Phillies star Steve Carlton (above, with Tim McCarver in 1976) had taken three no-nos to the ninth inning — for the Mets!

Phillies star Steve Carlton (above, with Tim McCarver in 1976) had taken three no-nos to the ninth inning — for the Mets!

WORLDWIDE MESS: ESPN and its sports know-nothings continued to make egregious mistakes, announcing after Johan Santana celebrated his no-hitter Friday that longtime Phillies star Steve Carlton (inset, with Tim McCarver in 1976) had taken three no-nos to the ninth inning — for the Mets! (Bill Kostroun (Santana); Bettmann/CORBIS (Carlton))

There are mistakes and there are MISTAKES.

ESPN, “The Worldwide Leader In Sports,” makes too many MISTAKES, the kind that expose the network’s reliance on flash and self-promotion and reveal its absence of fundamental knowledge as info passes through layers and then on to the air.

On Friday, two hours after Johan Santana’s no-hitter, “SportsCenter” reported a startling fact: In their 50 years, “only four Mets had taken no-hitters into the ninth; three times by Steve Carlton.”

As reader Mike O’Hehir wrote, “This lifelong Mets fan missed the Carlton Era.”

Such mistakes occur too often at ESPN to be considered aberrational. They’re telltale of a network deep in young wise guys and gals rather than genuine, soak-it-all-up-and-in sports fans.

For ESPN to have recently classified Bobby Thomson’s “Shot Heard ’Round The World” as “A walk-off HR run to win the 1951 NLCS” is beyond ridiculous.

I wasn’t born when Thomson hit that homer, yet, by the time I was 12, I knew all I could about it. I couldn’t help it. I was a sports fan.

For ESPN to have reported George Blanda’s death attached to footage of Jim Plunkett with the Raiders (Blanda was three years retired by the time Plunkett became a Raider) was another of those revealing mistakes, the kind that real sports fans could not make.

ESPN, apparently by design, has become the slickly wrapped gift package that contains a coupon for a free small soda at Disney World.

Given that we’re charged more and more for ESPN, it’s not the gift that sports fans had in mind.

* Longtime Mets fans are such wonderfully wounded nihilists that perhaps Santana granted them what they should have been careful to wish. Kinda like if the Cubs won a World Series; what would Cubs fans have left to live for?

Reader Don Reed: “I’ve been to 8,020 Mets games. Can I go home now?”

Mark Ponemon reaches way back to ask whether Santana will receive the 500,000 King Korn stamps promised to Mets who pitch no-hitters. (King Korn food markets sponsored the Mets in the mid-1960s.)

Regardless, Howie Rose, on Friday night, solidified his status as an indigenous treasure when, as the last out was made, he hollered his standard, “Put it in the books!,” then followed it with “Put it in the history books!” Fabulous!

(Beat the heck out of “Matteau! Matteau! Matteau!”)

Truth is, Rose referenced a no-hitter in the second inning; he pulled a Mike Francesa, no less! After Santana walked two straight, Rose said that if anyone were anticipating the first no-hitter in team history, this wouldn’t be it; Santana doesn’t have his good stuff!

By the way, Tom Seaver’s claim to have never met Santana is bizarre. In 2008, he and Santana talked at length throughout an SNY special hosted by Ron Darling.

* The widespread notion a replay rule could have or would have reversed third base ump Adrian Johnson’s bad foul call on Friday seems shortsighted.

If it had been ruled fair via a replay, where do we put the batter, Carlos Beltran? How do we presume whether he would have reached first or second, or whether he would or would not have fallen down, or he wouldn’t have been gastro attacked, felled by a Citi Field hot dog? Or the fielder wouldn’t throw the ball into the dugout? And so on?

It’s not like when a home run/foul ball is reviewed. In such cases, the ball’s out of play. If we start to “estimate” then rule on what might have happened, we enter the Land of Make Believe.

Detroit’s Young gets free pass from TV guys

Delmon Young was treated very kindly this weekend while playing against the Yankees for the first time since his arrest in Midtown, charged with a drunken, anti-Jewish spew and assault.

During Young’s first at-bat on Friday, YES’s Michael Kay only said he had been in “an altercation.” During his first at-bat on Saturday on Fox, neither Joe Buck nor Tim McCarver said a word about it, although Buck noted Young “has hit .358 his last 14 games.”

Oh, well, that’s how it goes.

* Must Kay artificially dramatize everything? It was bottom of the sixth on Friday, the Yankees up, 6-3. The Tigers had two on. “Coming up,” said Kay, “the dangerous Brennan Boesch.”

At the bottom of the screen were Boesch’s numbers: .236, five HRs, OBP .272. He’s so dangerous, he was batting seventh.

* I butchered a good story here on Friday, about how Padres manager Bud Black and Cubs manager Dale Sveum argued with different umps at different bases at the same time.

On a double-play ball, the runner ruled safe on a close play at second, had been on first, not second. On the throw to first the batter was ruled out on a close play, thus each manager had a beef with a different ump. It was a neat story, if I hadn’t wrecked it.

Tiger’s ad rate is down

It wasn’t too long ago that when Tiger Woods did what he did yesterday — played incredibly well — he also starred in all the commercials. Now? None.

* For crying out loud, during Saturday’s Kings-Devils, NBC aired an ad for an R-rated movie that included the scene of a wise guy looking up a woman’s skirt and referencing her genitalia. … Doc Emrick’s open to Game 2 of Kings-Devils: “Pressure on the Devils against an opponent that makes itself right at home on the road.” Perfect.

* Soundalikes: Jon Hayman submits Jack Nicklaus (heard this weekend on CBS as the host of The Memorial) and Bob Newhart.

* The difference between a sports update and a good sports update is often found in the parenthetical info. On Saturday, WFAN’s Joey Wahler noted Todd Frazier, “former Rutgers star,” had homered for the Reds.

* Suzyn Waldman on Saturday said “the original Four Tops” sang the national anthem before Yankees-Tigers. Sugar pie, honey bunch, the original Four Tops weren’t kids when they were big in the 1960s. Only one original is alive.

* Although Stephen A. Smith and ESPN consider Smith an NBA expert, his analysis betrays such a sell. He explains games in terms of which player takes the most shots, which should take the most shots and which scores — or should score — the most points. He seems to see/know nothing else.

* Tennis analysts, as at the French Open last week, confuse me. How can you hit “a winner” if you don’t risk “an unforced error?” And how can you commit an unforced error if you don’t try to hit a winner? Why bother with such stats?