Sports

Mo’s useless All-Star stat just one example of sporting nonsense

In Tribute to his last appearance in an All-Star Game on Tuesday, Mariano Rivera was the recipient of the second greatest honor a reliever can receive — a hold.

All-Star “break” my iPhone. The ridiculous kept flying at us like hardballs from a pitching machine loaded on Red Bull and Jameson.

While we were asked to consider our good fortune with the Knicks’ decision to “bring home” the flagrant fouler with the wishfully ironic, self-selected name, Metta World Peace — formerly Ron Artest, from Queens then St. John’s — reader Rich Podolsky reminds us the Knicks had a chance to draft him in 1999, as the 15th pick.

They instead chose 7-foot-2 Frenchman Frederic Weis, never to play an NBA game. Artest was selected 16th.

During the Home Run Derby at Citi Field, ESPN’s Nomar Garciaparra warmly mused that the event is for kids. Agreed. That, of course, would explain why it was sold as an All-Star Game obscenely priced must-buy tack-on ticket, and that it began well after 8 p.m., ending at 11 — as per ESPN’s purchased authority.

Reader Mike Nussbaum: “My kids, popcorn popped, juice chilled and homemade results cards with color-coded markers in hand, were asleep before the second round began.”

That’s an added shame given that this novelty act annually is assigned to ESPN’s Chris Berman, who has preserved his national persona as best suited to perform as a balloon-blowing clown at kids’ birthday parties.

Berman, with his exhausted, senselessly self-promoting shtick, is like your uncle who every Thanksgiving performs the trick where he pulls a quarter from your ear. Only your uncle is easier to indulge because he’s your uncle.

FOX’s Tim McCarver was an accomplished, thinking-man’s big league catcher, then a multi-team, multi-network lead TV analyst, one who alerts us to the circumstantial, pitch-by-pitch changing nature of baseball.

Yet, he chose the All-Star Game to join others in his belief in paranormal, supernatural, preordained baseball. To a national audience, he essentially suggested baseball is either haunted or inhabited by sprites who sprinkle fairy dust.

The bottom of the seventh began with Orioles third baseman Manny Machado throwing out Arizona’s Paul Goldschmidt on a fabulous get-and-throw. Next, David Wright singled.

“Shows you how important that play was by Machado,” McCarver said. “If he doesn’t make it, the NL has some rumblings going on.”

So if Wright’s hit was preordained — he was going to hit a line drive over short, regardless; the pitch, the swing, the moment all were going to be exactly the same — why was Machado’s play to throw out Goldschmidt any less preordained?

Despite his extraordinary ability to big-time himself out of big-time gigs, Keith Olbermann this week was returned to ESPN. That’s right, first Ray Lewis, now Olbermann!

Even in a crafted news release, Olbermann’s talent to demonstrate he’s snarky, self-infatuated, and, in time, insufferable, shined through. Perhaps borrowing from Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s Word War II vow to the Philippines, Olbermann seemed to declare, “I have returned!” Ready?

“Apart from the opportunity to try to create a nightly hour of sports television that no fan can afford to miss, I’m overwhelmed by the chance to begin anew at ESPN. I’ve been gone for 16 years and not one day in that time has passed without someone connecting me to the network.

“Our histories are indelibly intertwined, and, frankly, I have long wished that I had the chance to make sure the totality of that story would be a completely positive one.

“I’m grateful to friends and bosses — old and new — who have permitted that opportunity to come to pass. I’m not going to waste it.”

Good grief. Must’ve taken several operatives to complete the typing of that transcription, given they were intertwined by the totality of nausea.

Wednesday, a former NBC exec reached out: “At 8:15 last night, I asked my 10-year-old son if he wanted to watch some of the All-Star Game before bed. ‘Sure!’

“The first commercial, after the top of the first, was for ‘We’re The Millers,’ a movie, as best I can tell, about a stripper who pretends to be someone’s mom and gets caught in a drug ring. It included shots of Jennifer Aniston, well, stripping [also the scene of a handgun being pointed and fired]. The movie is rated R.

“I’m done worrying that inappropriate content might show up within telecasts of big sports events. It will.”

A piece in Sunday’s Hartford Courant: Miguel Sano, a top Twins prospect playing for New Britain of the Eastern League, claims Robinson Cano has become his mentor: “He tells me you have to hustle all the time.”

Good advice, even if it apparently came from a guy claiming to be Robinson Cano.

Of course, no one has even suggested the real Cano hustle. Just running to first would be a vast and obvious improvement.

And we’ll leave you with this thought, from Bill McAuliffe of Washington Township, N.J.: “Ever wonder what would’ve happened had Cano hit that grounder to Bill Buckner in the ’86 World Series?”

89-year-old war veteran an Amazin’ usher

During tomorrow’s game against the Phillies, the Mets will salute Luke Gasparre, soon to turn 89 and still a stadium usher — a gig he has held since April 17, 1964, the first game played in Shea. In addition to being a cherished 50-year in-house character, Gasparre is a veteran of the Battle of the Bulge.

* No matter how many times we heard the Orioles’ Chris Davis has 37 homers at “the halfway point” or “at the break” — as if on pace to hit 74 — Baltimore already played 96 of 162 games.

* How come “Weekend” Boomer Esiason never says “c–p” and “p–s,” among other crudities, on CBS’s NFL studio show, vulgarities “Weekday” Boomer regularly speaks on WFAN/MSG?

* As usual, ESPN’s live coverage of the British Open yesterday was interrupted by commercials and promos reminding us the British Open is something no one should miss.

* Tiger Woods twice emitted Grade A curses so loudly the only folks who apparently couldn’t hear them were working ESPN’s telecast. Completely ignored. But ESPN four times on tape showed Charl Schwartzel angrily throwing a club.

* Police this week separately questioned Mr. and Mrs. Met, demanding each explain all those stitches in their heads.