Sports

KORNHEISER’S DEPARTURE WON’T FIX BROKEN NETWORK

ITEM: Tony Kornheiser, after three seasons, out on ESPN’s “Monday Night Football,” Jon Gruden in.

Kornheiser was never as bad as ESPN allowed him to be. No one on ESPN is. ESPN, if it has any broadcast coaches for its big-ticket telecasts, either doesn’t have good ones or ESPN’s hires are uncoachable.

Consider that on a weekly football telecast — it’s TV, something you watch — the typical comment from an ESPN “Monday Night” guy has probably been 40-70 words. So has the response to the comment from one of the two other commentators.

Reasonably, though, again given that we have tuned in to watch a game, a comment should run between zero and 10 words. In some cases, silence or a mere grunt would suffice as a reasonable response from one of the two other commentators, if two others are needed.

But the “E” in ESPN has come to stand for excess. And that’s why ESPN always is left to “fix” the same mistakes. Heck, if there were a good sportscast coach at ESPN, Joe Theismann, the more thoughtful and quiet model, might still be on the job, Joe Morgan wouldn’t cause night tremors and Jay Bilas wouldn’t be on deck.

Beyond that, you can’t succeed by forcing zany or funny or irreverence of any kind, and that’s what Kornheiser was expected to do and left to do. That’s why Dennis Miller didn’t work out on “Monday Night Football.”

That’s why Kenny Mayne is stuck playing that Kenny Mayne character on ESPN, Lee Corso is stuck playing Lee Corso, and Chris Berman, who long ago should have been encouraged — even ordered — to move beyond and above his clown act, remains ESPN’s head clown. They’ve all been painted into corners.

Kornheiser, if applied properly, naturally, could have been a valued, quick-hit kibitzer. Instead, he often applied bad guesswork — another widespread ESPN affliction — to a forced act. No, John Fox never coached under Bill Parcells, and if Reggie Bush became a pass-catcher after entering the NFL — another Kornheiser declarative — how does that explain the 95 catches he made in three seasons with USC?

Gruden? He’s 45, thus he has at least one big coaching contract left. He will be mentioned as someone’s successor the entire time he’s in ESPN’s booth, which likely will serve him as a between-stops waiting room.

ITEM: WFAN’s most astute caller of the week is waved off, lost to Mike Francesa’s dismissive, pompous side. Again.

The caller wanted to talk about that appeal play in Los Angeles, when the Mets lost the lead in the top of the 11th after Ryan Church was ruled out for missing third on an Angel Pagan triple. And the caller knew what he was talking about.

He said he’s a high school baseball coach, and in such rare situations — when there’s a call for an appeal play at third with a runner already there, as there was Monday in L.A. — he would instruct the player on third (Pagan) to run toward home the moment the pitcher starts the “live ball” appeal by touching the rubber and beginning his throw to third.

In that way, he tried to continue, the team in the field (Dodgers) must make a split-second move: Follow through on the appeal at third — in Monday’s case risk Church being called safe, thus the Mets would have a two-run lead (Church scoring, followed by Pagan) — or throw home to tag the runner (Pagan), thus no appeal at third could be made and the Mets would be conceded that one, go-ahead run (Church).

You knew where the caller was headed: The only way the Mets could not enter the bottom of the 11th with a lead was if the Dodgers stayed focused enough to carry out the appeal and Church was ruled to have missed third. Fascinating!

But Francesa spoke over the caller, big-timing him and disallowing him from fully making his point. Francesa broadly explained that the play was “dead,” which wasn’t the issue. The caller was talking about sending Pagan once the appeal process restarted the game.

As reader Robert Adler writes, “Here was a high school coach calling in, not some kid who wanted to trade Daniel Murphy for Matt Holliday. . . . Here was the one call, all afternoon, worth listening to, and Francesa blew him off.”

ITEM: NBA and NHL playoffs continue.

Which comes first, the end of the 2008-09 NBA and NHL seasons, or the start of their 2009-10 seasons? The TV-stretched NBA season now lasts a few days longer than the MLB season.

ITEM: Desperate Yanks reach deep into old mailing lists to sell overpriced seats.

“Wanna know how deep they’re digging?” asks reader W.H. Jones. “Until three years ago, when I cancelled, all I had with the Yankees was a single seat for their Friday plan, in the top part of the upper deck. They were $15 tickets, eventually $18.

“I never heard from them again until a few months ago, when they tried to sell me $450 seats.”

Thursday, Jones again heard from the Yanks, this time to try to sell him a suite, which, reduced, now starts at $3,600 per game for 12 people.

phil.mushnick@nypost.com