Rise of legal gambling helping fuel fans’ ugly behavior toward athletes

Welcome to our annual Labor Day weekend brunch buffet. And don’t forget to stop by our three-cheese omelet station. …

What do you suppose has driven the escalation of “social” media putdowns, threats and unfettered hatred that has been aimed at pro tennis players?What do you suppose has driven the escalation of “social” media putdowns, threats and unfettered hatred that has been aimed at pro tennis players?

Well, is it logical to note that the hatred has coincided with the rise in legal gambling on sports? All sports have reported increased incivilities from “fans” as per their lack of success through the growth and promotion of gambling. Why should tennis be different from golf, basketball and football?

Tennis is the easiest sport to fix, as all one needs is one person — himself or herself — plus, perhaps, one other to place the bets.

Regardless, easily outraged nuts will always be among us, but digital instant messaging plus legalized wagering from which the sports financially benefit help unscrew the nuts from their bolts.

Speaking of legalized sports gambling, Bob Costas, calling Thursday night’s Braves-Phillies on MLB Network, continues to refuse to narrate any gambling come-ons, in game or between half innings. He insists that someone else handle that, often in a remote or recorded insert.

Costas was raised in a household that was afflicted and conflicted by excessive gambling. He knows the scene and the sickness.

He’s the opposite of “Everyone Loves” Charles Barkley, an admitted big-problems gambler who compiled staggering casino debt, yet still took the cash to star in commercials encouraging young male adult suckers to gamble. What a guy!

Apparently there was at least a modicum of internal shame within the Mets following that Camp Day afternoon disgrace when the Mets honored a young, TikTok oral sex “advisor” by having her throw out the ceremonial first pitch.

Reader and Mets’ fan Henry Conte contacted team owner Steve Cohen to express his dismay. Cohen responded:

“Henry — I’m sorry you feel that way. I’ve taken the appropriate remedial actions to ensure that this situation doesn’t occur again.

“Poor judgment was exercised here and I’m as upset as you are. Thanks for the feedback. Best, Steve.”

Not bad. No attempt to excuse the inexcusable. Though a fully public, unsolicited apology would have closed the case.

Regardless, it sure beat Rob Manfred’s usual Sgt. Schultz act.

Stephen A. can’t keep Yanks’ lineup order in order

OK, so now after Stephen A. Smith’s latest self-revealment as an $18 million per (plus commercial endorsements) fake — last week’s blowhard, expert on-air assertion that “Bro” Aaron Judge benefits from batting behind Juan Soto when the reverse has been in place all season — was further proof that ESPN’s center stage voice, face and presence has a credibility rating of zero.

Smith offers nothing better than his transparent bad-guess “facts,” his race hustles and ignorance of the sports he addresses from his self-constructed and ESPN-secured mountaintop throne.

And it’s totally inconceivable that ESPN can any longer play stupid to Smith’s fakery. It’s certainly not as if ESPN viewers and subscribers weren’t years ago unaware of Smith’s bogus presence as ESPN execs increased his pay and presence.

So what does ESPN, this time, do about it? The track record guess is nothing. ESPN’s double standard is granitized. Then wait until next time — it’s due sooner than later — for Smith to make more perverse comedy of himself and ESPN — then do nothing, again.

If college players are academically deficient, why shouldn’t their schools’ partner networks?

Near the top of Fox’s North Carolina-Minnesota on Thursday, a large graphic appeared suggesting that a key to the game was for UNC to “Play Complimentary Football.”

Reader Ken Mortenson: “Apparently victory for UNC is based on saying only nice things to the Gophers during the game.”

We’ll take a wild guess here: Fox meant “Complementary” and not “Complimentary.”

For all the boring, repeatedly empty, expensive and unentertaining national TV MLB pregame shows, has it struck any production exec that a return to some form of “This Week in Baseball” might actually both attract and hold an audience?

What baseball fan ever turned off TWIB? So why not produce one from a network’s studios?

Of course, if such a show were resurrected, the producers might stuff it with bat-flips and all forms of me-dancing.

Maybe the college can no longer afford a janitorial staff or to heat the dorms, but there’s always plenty of money for sports.

Thursday, Monmouth opened at Eastern Washington. Oddly enough there is no direct flight from West Long Branch, N.J., to Cheney, Wa.

Seems everything we watched on national network prime time TV last month was stuffed with empty-headed cheerleading: NBC’s Olympics, the Republican National Convention, the Democratic National Convention. Same sell, same smell.

I suppose this is the week when NFL head coaches gather their fabulously paid troops to demand that not one of them cause the team 15 yards, let alone a win, for post-play, all-about-me misconduct.

Then again, if that were the case, we wouldn’t be beginning another season when such impudence among professionals hasn’t grown worse.

Tickets not all UK fans buying

In this age of “more transparency” more and more seems attached to a con.

The University of Kansas recently announced payment rules on season’s tickets for football and basketball. In addition to must-pay-for-tickets, there is a “required donation.” Required donation? Is that anything like a mob shakedown?

Then there’s the National Football Foundation, which last week announced that there are a “Record-Breaking 3,534 Graduates Suiting Up For College Football This Season.”

The news release added that all of them will be in the quest for “additional diplomas,” as if they’re all both enrolled in active pursuit of graduate degrees — a masters or doctorate — in addition to playing football.

Malarkey in pail! These are football players who have slipped through eligibility loopholes under the laughable guise of grad students, and the universities are complicit in the scheme and scam.

The NFF would be taxed to find a tiny fraction of these 3,534 post-grad players in any campus structure outside the athletic department.

And the TV and radio announcers, who wouldn’t dare ask what these players’ specific academic goals are, will obediently play this bogus game, continuing to identity them only as “graduate transfers.”

Standards? What standards? Where?

Despite a career as a slugger predicated on admitted steroid use, an arrest for domestic assault and incarceration for violation of a drug distribution probation, Jose Canseco last week was inducted into the A’s Hall of Fame.

Al Attles, the Newark-born career-long Warriors — Philly, San Francisco, Oakland — player, coach and GM died Aug. 20, at 87.

I was surprised to read in his obit that he was just 6-foot, as he played tall and tough.

Attles also had a thoughtful way with words. Asked about comparing apples to oranges, he said, “They’re both good fruit.”

I wonder how many employees of just sold-out WCBS News Radio 880 — committed, valued, news professionals — will enjoy, if possible, their first Labor Day off from labor in decades.