Sports

Longtime Jets fans punished by preseason

There are one million stories in PSL City. Here’s another one:

Chris McGrath and family have been Jets season-ticket subscribers since 1964. That’s 47 years of support, some good times, mostly bad times, but always there.

Last week McGrath was on the phone with a Jets ticket rep when he heard a pitch being delivered by another sales rep to a different caller. The rep was pitching the person an all-eight-home-games regular-season ticket package — a deal sweetened by the fact he or she wouldn’t have to buy tickets to the Jets’ two home preseason games, like full-time suckers, er, subscribers must.

Like McGrath, Jets ticket subscriber since 1964, must.

“I’m sitting there listening to this and I’m burning,” he said. “Why am I being punished for being a loyal, steady customer? I have lousy seats and I’m still paying $420 for exhibition games.

“The whole thing is absurd. What other business allows you to make fools of your best customers?”

In this town? Hell, that’s what it’s all about.

Players Association head DeMaurice Smith has it down. Seated beside NFL commissioner Roger “It’s All About Our Fans / PSLs Are Good Investments” Goodell, Smith declared the signing of the new collective bargaining agreement “a great day for our fans.”

Yeah, sure. Still waiting for the NFLPA’s position on PSLs and must-buy preseason games. Pro or con?

Thursday, during YES’ A’s-Yankees telecast, a full screen come-on appeared: “The Chase For 28!”

“2011 Full Season Tickets Still Available!”

“Option To Purchase Same Seats For 2011 Postseason!”

That’s right, because tickets to Yankees games in new Yankee Stadium have been so obscenely overpriced, on Aug. 25, the first-place Yankees were still pitching this season’s season tickets, playoffs and World Series tickets attached.

On Aug. 25, the first-place Yankees still were selling season tickets, as if they were one part indoor lacrosse team, one part pawn shop and all parts made desperate by their own greed.

YES, Ken, unprofessional behavior persists

Ken Singleton, Friday night on YES, delivered a strong lecture about baseball fundamentals and common sense basics after Baltimore’s Robert Andino posed then jogged a triple into a double.

Fine. Who wouldn’t agree with Singleton?

But here’s the issue: Why, at the highest level of the profession, does selfish, counterproductive behavior — conduct that wouldn’t be tolerated by high school coaches — persist?

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Right question, wrong answer: Thursday, during the California-Pennsylvania Little League World Series game on ESPN2, roving reporter Kyle Peterson blithely asked the father of a player on the California team to describe his LLWS experience.

“Stressful,” he said.

While we’re at it, ESPN continues to rate and rank children. An ESPN TV special will name “The Elite 11” — the top (perhaps), 11 high school QBs in the country.

Bob Ley, on ESPN’s “Outside the Lines,” could devote a month’s worth of shows on how ESPN fuels the unholy and unreasonable pressures that ruin it for kids while pushing adults to madness. Can’t ESPN stop with just feeding kids Texas Hold ‘Em?

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ESPN’s “He Got Jacked Up!” lives! … on NBC.

TV always is the last to know. At a time when everyone recognizes the NFL has become inexcusably brutal — leaving players physically and neurologically impaired for life, lives often shortened — NBC’s “Sunday Night Football” telecasts feature the “Hewlett Packard Hit of the Game,” tape of some excessively violent shot. Is there no one at NBC who recognizes the difference between a brutal shot and a great tackle? Is there no one at NBC who follows football?

Arizona State gets Nike treatment

The football team representing Arizona State, school colors maroon and gold, has added a third uniform. Take a wild guess. Black and yellow, per Nike’s orders.

“I wonder what would happen,” writes reader John Rooney, “if Nike were given the task of making American flags.”

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The Yankees were crushing the A’s, 22-9, Thursday, when Singleton said, “I don’t think this one will be shown on ‘A’s Classics.’ ” Michael Kay then applied a YES reality: “Do the A’s ever lose on ‘A’s Classics’?”

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Quiz time: Pat Gillick, Blue Jays and Phillies GM recently inducted at Cooperstown, is the first Hall of Famer to have been a member of what fraternal organization? Answer at bottom.

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Line forms to the rear: Add NBC’s NFL “insider” Mike Florio to the long list of those sick and tired of ESPN taking credit for breaking stories that it didn’t break.

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Now that Jets coach Rex Ryan and WFAN’s Mike Francesa are talking, how long before Francesa reaches for his Bill Parcells-era Jets’ team jacket?

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Thursday from the Barclays at Plainfield, a Golf Channel microphone caught Keegan Bradley asking his caddie a question, to which the caddie answered: “I don’t know.” After an uneasy pause, Nick Faldo said: “That was way too honest for a caddie.”

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Nothing ESPN does is subtle. It becomes a business partner with the University of Texas athletic department — as the NCAA responds with a blank stare — and now there’s no tuning to ESPN without Longhorns football being shoved down our senses.

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Answer: Gillick’s the first Hall of Famer to have been a Boy Scouts of America Eagle Scout.