The vulgar scam leagues, TV networks are running on right-minded fans

Don’t let them push you from the high road. You’re neither crazy nor alone. Hardly.

One day, likely too late, those who run sports, TV and other forms of media will discover that those who know and choose right over wrong should never have been dismissed as unimportant.

But until the realization that the decent-minded were vastly underrepresented, we’ll remain tethered to cons.

Where do we start this week?

How about CC Sabathia, media-proclaimed strong family man who nevertheless is unable or unwilling to speak in public without including vulgarities. Sabathia, as a self-perceived victim of the Astros’ sign-stealing, said he’d be pleased if MLB vacated Houston’s 2017 World Series title.

Yeah, slam those cheaters!

But what about your teams, CC? Alex Rodriguez played behind you for five years. Remember? Recall Andy Pettitte? Future drug-busted players such as Robinson Cano and Melky Cabrera?

Reader James Torbik: “Why has sign-stealing been dealt with more swiftly and sternly than steroids?” Another good question to which there is no good answer. MLB’s drug-infused, records-smashing era lasted 12 years.

This week, it was a scandal that Derek Jeter wasn’t unanimously elected to the Hall of Fame. Infamy!

Yet former commissioner Bud Selig, who allowed The Game to plummet into disrepute in exchange for cash generated by drug-muscled sluggers over those dozen years, was fast-tracked into the Hall to the sounds of media congratulations or silence.

Now imagine if NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, in exchange for his $42 million per, were a real deal, good-of-the-game leader rather than a pandering can-kicker and TV money game-flexer who doesn’t mind that his league continues to disenfranchise the right-minded.

Chiefs star was fortunate to be playing this past Sunday in the AFC Championship game. His inclination toward domestic abuse, starting in 2015 when he was tossed from Oklahoma State after admitting to beating his pregnant girlfriend, would have disqualified him from jobs that will pay him $55 million for three years.

Regardless, when introduced as a starter Sunday, he stopped in the end zone to perform that pathetic dog urination mime.

After Hill’s national TV act went seen on CBS, but politely unspoken (TV is frightened to offend the offensive), Tony Romo filled air and space with a sermon on how professionals take pride in playing in their conference championships.

Goodell was there. Citing the NFL’s long-overdue “Enough Is Enough” policy, he could’ve suspended Hill on the spot, creating a precedent for courage of conviction to protect the game from even more such big-game vandalism.

For all the fury and furor that would have created, Goodell could finally have left his lasting territorial mark atop the one Hill left in the end zone. But Hill’s latest — the NFL previously let him skate from allegations he had abused his child — didn’t even draw a penalty.

And this week, Goodell again passed on an opportunity to send a strong message about such indefensible conduct. He whistled past Hill’s act rather than suspending him for the Super Bowl. Not even a public scolding.

At game’s end, Kansas City tight end Travis Kelce, copying a trend in postgame conduct on Goodell’s watch, intruded on — ambushed — a CBS interview to holler the F-word.

If Kelce, University of Cincinnati man, knew right from wrong he chose wrong because he could. If he knew that Goodell wouldn’t suffer such behavior — that he would come down outspokenly hard on it — might Kelce have thought twice?

But unrestrained, publicly unpunished lowest-form behavior has grown under Goodell, exacerbated by his invitation to players to perform rehearsed, excessively immodest TD skits and post-tackle dances and taunts — even when their team is losing — as a matter of “natural enthusiasm.” Another con.

Thus it came as no surprise this week that the geniuses at ESPN circulated a video of a kid, maybe 12, scoring a TD then performing a “Marshawn Lynch” — flipping into the end zone while holding his crotch, an NFL-taught act like urination and defecation mimes, all treated by Goodell with pandering silence.

ESPN, of course, was delighted to share it.

Blowing whistle on whistle-blower critics

Having sat beside Alex Rodriguez for the past three seasons, why would ESPN’s Jessica Mendoza be moved to do better than castigating former Houston pitcher Mike Fiers for reporting that Astros’ games were systemically fixed?

If that, as Mendoza said, is none of our business, how does she feel about sexual harassment? Women should just keep it to themselves?

Would she have ignored illegal, game-changing drug use in allowing Sammy Sosa, Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire to smash HR records? Did she consider clean players, placed at career disadvantage, to be fools?

Would she not ask why the Astros, like ex-commissioner Bud Selig’s steroids-for-profit silence before them, thought they could keep the lid on this? Or was Rosie Ruiz also a victim of meddlesome whistle-blowers?

Only ESPN would continue to cite James Harden’s context-less scoring totals for the Rockets as reflective of greatness. The scoring machine scored 29 in a five-point home loss to the Thunder on Monday. Except he was 1-for-17 on 3-point attempts.

In other Monday games, the Bulls and Pelicans each took 48 3s, the Kings went 13-for-51 from deep.

The NBA is drowning in its own gimmick gravy. Remedy: Kill the 3-point shot or make fast-break layups worth four points.

Left cold by CBS’s AFC title pregame

Because no bad idea goes unduplicated then perpetuated, CBS brought its NFL studio show to sit in the cold at the AFC Championship game. The result? Shouting from five panelists beneath ski hats and choked by scarves. Brilliant waste of time and money.

The Mets’ Marcus Stroman, like Pete Alonso, is unable to communicate with the public without tossing in vulgarities?

Reader Jack Lefkowitz recognizes that the playoffs are the only time the NFL correctly uses “bye week.”

It seems WFAN morning man Gregg Giannotti is the latest to replace comedy and creativity with cruelty. He has become gratuitously harsh — a bully — with callers. If he thinks that makes him sound slick, he’s wrong.

Wonder what Luis Rojas’ position is on Mets running to first base, pro or con? How about sticking with effective pitchers?

Another con: Fox football analyst Joel Klatt, in an XFL on Fox promo, claimed the XFL will be stocked with “unprecedented talent.” Just following orders!

Saturday on Fox, that was Washington, school colors purple and gold, in its all-black home uniforms.

Dick Vitale, on Saturday during Kentucky-Arkansas on ESPN, said two, too-long first-half stoppages for needless replay reviews and guesswork “ruined the rhythm of the game.” He was right.

If there were any doubt that Odell Beckham Jr. is not a transparent attention-starved stage hog, he made sure to make news and noise intruding on the LSU-Clemson championship.

Reader Kevin O’Keefe: “Why don’t teams that win the coin toss choose to go ‘downhill’?”

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