Sports

Error-filled condescension mars Yankees radio

WHAT was promised in the Declaration of Independence — “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” — likely wasn’t intended to be seasonal.

Monday afternoon was what we had waited for — sunny, warm enough to grab the transistor, take a walk, listen to the Yankees-Indians game.

But then it hit me — again, as it now hits me, every spring: No can do. Not the Yankees. Mets? No problem. Yankees? No chance.

Not with John Sterling talking down to us, making obnoxious, forced and haughty cackles as if he is thinking something that he is much too wise to share, before getting back to his specialty: Butchering the play-by-play to get it right — perhaps, but who knows? — the third time.

Then back to his great self-smitten, avuncular orations — contradictory gibberish that includes, “You never know in baseball,” soon followed by, “A hit here scores the runner from second.”

There is no way of knowing that what Sterling is telling you/told you is actually happening or happened. His self-promotional, all-the-same/ rarely correct home run call has become a cruel joke, one that turns grand slams into foul ball fly outs, followed by Suzyn Waldman’s habit-formed, “I thought it was out, too.”

Given 22 years of being forced to rely on Sterling, many, at this point, would settle for him just giving the score — and getting that right — now and then.

And all those insulting in-game commercial reads — before and after standard half-inning commercial breaks — have destroyed radio broadcasts of the “World’s Most Famous Team,” turning it to Radio John’s Bargain Basement, a discount drive-through at a lard renderings plant.

Even the disclaimer “Any transmission or re-broadcast …” is now preceded and followed by a sponsorship. Before a 2-1 pitch in a 1-1 game we’re told to subscribe to Time Warner Cable, and right now! — yeah, shut off your radio!

There’s an official car, minivan, SUV, florist, cheesesteak, plumbing supplier, funeral home (home and away), pest controller, house paint, house painter, cell-phone charger, men’s fragrance, tax-debt advisor, cat litter, Styrofoam, mortgage broker, tube sock, pancake house, discount tire dealer, second mortgage broker, ply board, mayonnaise and leaf blower of the Yankees and/or Yankees Radio, before, after, during every pitch.

It has been more than 20 years since one could get a reasonably respectable and respectful local radio call of a Yankees game while in the car, at the beach, on the porch, the front steps or while taking a walk. The liberty to pursue such a happiness has become irrelevant.

And, very clearly, be it the fleecings one must suffer to attend games in new Yankee Stadium, or the lost, simple pleasure of listening to a game on the radio, the Yankees couldn’t possibly care any less.

YES should say ‘no’ to third-inning sideline reports

Yankees Yes telecasts remain wedded to a prefabricated, indiscriminate formula. Doesn’t matter what’s going on, in the third inning YES is going to cut to its roving reporter, originally Kim Jones, now Meredith Marakovits.

Monday’s game in Cleveland was 3-3 when Robinson Cano led off the third with a double. Given the score, this would be a particularly good time to pay attention to the game, perhaps YES would even give us some tape to show if Cano had run reasonably hard the entire trip, something he regards as optional.

But we got shut out. Instead, we were given Marakovits in a standup from the “Beer Garden” bleachers, from where she reported, “It’s getting a bit rowdy, out here” — imagine that — followed by a the telecast’s third or fourth chat about how pumped Nick Swisher is to see ex-teammates.

To think, such rovers are supposed to help, not hurt, telecasts. But YES, with its third-inning formula, treats them like something to get out of the way, like a dental appointment.

* Dept. of Even More Lost Tapes: For a guy who never is right, Mike “Let’s Be Honest” Francesa never tires of being rudely, arrogantly and dismissively dead wrong. This week a caller — seemed to be a very nice man, too — began to tell his personal recollection of the ’73 championship Knicks and Harthorne Wingo.

Francesa jumped him, told him he was wrong. Wingo played for ’70 champion Knicks, then blew harder from there. The man never got a chance to tell his story.

And Francesa was wrong. Wingo played for the ’73 Knicks — his first year in the NBA!

ESPN’s late-night comedy link

Conan O’Brien makes a great crack — the man dressed as Cookie Monster who was arrested in Midtown for shoving a 2-year-old will be Rutgers’ new basketball coach — and he gets full credit for what someone else likely wrote. But that’s how comedy — and ESPN’s breaking news department — works.

* The coverage of Tiger Woods before majors is so conditioned by contrivance that the media always come away with spectacular conclusions — and sensational news! — from his dreadfully dull, be-extra-careful, say-nothing news conferences.

* Every day (and night) ESPN presents a telltale, big and small, as to what it has become. The headline of a news release Wednesday broke this stunner: “Celtics’ Rajon Rondo Grants ESPN’s Hannah Storm First National TV Interview Since Knee Surgery.”

* Cliff Floyd and Joey Cora — both good interviews as players — have been added to MLB Network as studio analysts.

* The first half of Louisville-Michigan on Monday was so jammed with relentless action that it was tough to figure whether we were exhausted from watching it or bushed just because it was late. Too bad that such senses-pleasing, high-energy basketball mostly was lost to next-day radio talk about the officiating, much of it from gamblers.

* Not sure anymore what it takes to make any Hall of Fame, but a lot of tickets to a lot of games were sold to a lot of people, especially people in New Jersey and then Utah, attached to the promise of watching Bernard King play — except King either was under arrest for domestic violence, suspended or in alcohol/drug rehab.

* Before next college basketball season, CBS ought to let us know if it will ask Clark Kellogg to return to being a game analyst or have him continue as a hollering, transparently contrived, don’t-touch-that-dial shill.

* Letter of the Week, from Pete Gilmore, The Bronx: “First time, long time. Thanks for taking my email. I couldn’t stay up to watch the game, last night (because I have a job), but I see ESPN is reporting that Louisville pulled it out by going on an 82-76 run.”