The real “tragedy” — or maybe the main benefit — of the Arizona Cardinals’ punching their ticket to the Super Bowl is that it’ll probably cause mass apoplexy among the NFL “chatterati.” Those are the former NFL players, and non-athlete talking heads, who profess profound knowledge of the sport. Before the playoffs, to a man, they insisted that the Cards had zero chance of winning even a single game, because “you have to play hard every game,” “can’t turn the switch off and on,” “need momentum going into the playoffs,” or whatever hackneyed clichés work for them.

Apparently, they’re wrong. It IS possible to look for several weeks like sludge at the bottom of a septic tank, get blown out in embarrassing fashion just a few weeks before the playoffs, lose 4 of your last 6 games, limp into the playoffs with an 8-8 record that was probably worse than it looked, and still win against the better teams that surged into the playoffs. Who knew?

Not the “experts,” many of whom are outstanding at telling you what’s actually happening on the field, or can unravel in intricate detail the minutiae of a play that’s just been run, but are no better than thee and me at predicting who’s going to beat whom. Indeed, as we learn every March, when the secretary who makes her picks based on how cute the teams’ mascots are, they’re not necessarily better than the most casual of fans.

No matter. As we’ve learned from the political media on the networks, where expert after expert failed miserably to call the shots on Iraq, the financial markets, and other really important events, being a pundit means never, ever, ever, ever having to say you’re sorry. Heck, William Kristol has yet to be right about ANYTHING, and the New York Times actually hired that hack to be a columnist.

I, like everyone else living outside Arizona, assume the Cards will get crushed by the Steelers in the big game. But nothing would surprise me at this stage. Well, nothing except, maybe, Matt Leinart being called into service and winning the thing in spectacular fashion.

Interesting that there’s been next to no public uproar about Dwyane Wade, one of the darlings of the sports media, whose comeback this season with his team of plucky underdogs is one of the feelgood NBA story lines of the year. No, I don’t mean uproar about his play, which has been excellent and deserves the pub. I’m referring, of course, to the publicly aired accusations of his wife, Siohvaughn, filed in the divorce proceedings that D-Wade initiated last year.

In those filings, the soon-to-be former Mrs. Wade accuses D-Whistle — ironically named a “Father of the Year” by the National Father’s Day Committee in 2007 — of essentially abandoning his children, who are alternately afraid of and don’t even recognize him. The more explosive revelation is that, allegedly, D-Wade gave her an unspecified STD, which he presumably contracted from one of his many extramarital excursions.

I don’t know if those accusations are true. People in divorce proceedings often make explosive claims — child abuse being one of the most common ones these days — either to gain advantage in custody issues, or property division in states that aren’t 100 percent “no-fault,” or just to hurt the other party. Sometimes they’re true; often they’re false. Arguably, Paul McCartney’s ex got a few million extra by virtue of some of the bizarre claims she made about him. For all I know, if Wade’s wife has an STD, she got it from her own extramarital activities.

But that’s not the point. The point is that the media have an investment in preserving and burnishing the Wade destined-for-sainthood story arc they’ve created and nurtured: unheralded product of a Midwestern mid-major; burst into prominence in his Junior year; married high-school sweetheart; went to Miami where he immediately became a leader and, unlike that evil Kobe, was able to work with Shaq well enough to win an NBA championship. Humble despite his outlandish athleticism, leadership and accomplishments; well-grounded family man loyal to his first love; playful man-child, as shown by his phone commercials with Charles Barkley — these are the memes that infuse the myth of D-Wade sold to the public. Serial philandering, hearty partying, and transmission of an STD to the mother of one’s children, don’t fit into the narrative, and are therefore being ignored — certainly, ignored on a national stage.

I don’t know if the allegations are true or not. I DO know that pretty much everyone in the media “knew” the Eagle, Colorado allegations against Kobe were true and convicted him in the Court of Public Opinion even as he was being exonerated, after a fashion, in the real court, the one that counted. What’s stopping a similar rush to judgment here, I suspect, is that the media and image-makers actually like D-Wade, and have always had been a bit cold to The Kobester — who’d returned the favor — even when he was the league’s poster boy.

Some people are just Teflon. Wade may well be one of those chosen few. Shaq O’Neal may be another. Shaq has had ugly separations from every single NBA team he’s been on, has trashed them vituperatively, and yet, somehow, it’s never been his fault. Or, if it has been his fault, who cares? Talk about serial philandering, read up on some of the details of his now-resolved divorce proceedings. But it’s OK, because the story on Shaq is that “he’s just a big kid,” and any petulance, pettiness, backstabbing or treachery is instantly cleansed and excused.

Heck, even Magic Johnson, beloved of all in Lakerland despite his abominable talk show of years past, which should have been more than enough to take the bloom off the rose, has a few skeletons in his closet. Yes, it was big news globally when he announced that he had contracted HIV — and, oh, by the way, had given it to the woman who became his wife. But nobody expressed anything but sympathy for him, or (publicly, at least) asked the tough questions about how he got it — or whether he continued to have unprotected sex after contracting the virus.

Magic has many fine qualities. He’s gregarious and outgoing. Obviously, he was an all-time great basketball player. He invests in businesses that cater to and create jobs for the African-American community. He apparently has something of a social conscience. He’s obviously an accomplished capitalist. He’s become somewhat of a public face of HIV/AIDS, and has helped “humanize” that dreaded condition, so that society has become more accepting of people who have the virus, and even the disease. He’s living proof that HIV doesn’t have to be a short-term death sentence. Is that enough? Apparently, when you’re Magic Johnson, it is, and nothing like giving your wife-to-be the HIV virus and (scurrilous rumormongers suggest) unprotected sex even after being diagnosed HIV-positive can be allowed to deface the edifice that the media have erected.

Michael Jordan, Julius Erving, and countless other top, revered professional athletes have their own repugnant personal secrets — which are no longer secret. Just last month, Charles Barkley was arrested for DUI, and the story came out that he’s an inveterate lush, has had many stops for driving drunk, and tried to weasel out of the collar by whining that he was on his way to enjoy some of the world’s best extramarital oral gratification. Yet, none of those revelations have tarnished their images much.

Yeah, I know Sir Charles is on an extended “leave of absence,” but nobody really cares. In Jordan’s case, what has REALLY tarnished his image wasn’t the sordid Karla Knafel affair, or the suggestions of an over-the-top gambling problem, but rather the pathetic job he did as a basketball executive in Washington and, so far, at Charlotte. Once again, when the media have a major investment in hagiography, they’re reluctant to strip away the curtain.

Not so for one Kobe Bean Bryant. He cheated on his wife, and allegedly assaulted a hotel employee sexually. I understand, of course, that an accusation of rape, followed by a grand jury indictment, isn’t some trivial peccadillo that can be laughed off or swept easily under the rug. But you’d think it might make SOME difference that the criminal case fell apart in spectacular fashion, and pretty clearly showed itself to be the product of a politician’s overweening ambition and thirst for publicity, and a gold-digger’s hunger for Benjamins.

Nope. Although he’s regained some luster, Kobe — who, let it be remembered, has never been accused of transmitting an STD, and who, from all outward appearances, appears actually to interact well with his daughters — has never recovered his “cred” with either the media or the public. At least, not with the American public.

This isn’t a call to join in a Kobe pity party. Frankly, I don’t care whether people like or hate any athlete. Some people are rubber, some are glue. The media love to protect and defend some celebrities, and to throw darts at others. Fair or unfair, who cares? Even pro athletes who are hated are making plenty of money, and can find plenty of people to stroke their egos, either for a price or just for the privilege of being allowed to star****.

But I do care that the media conspire to construct false public personas of sports idols — virtual Potemkin Villages of fake biography — and then do their damnedest to assure that even contradictory evidence doesn’t tarnish them irrevocably. Unless they have reason to dislike the athlete, in which case, it’s open season.

I, for one, could easily live happily without having to endure more of the treacly pap about athletes who are solid family men, or devoted to their religion, or fun-loving children in men’s bodies, beloved by all, or all the other non-sports related sob-sistering that passes for sports “journalism” these days. Especially if those bogus images cover up harsher realities. We all could. And not just with athletes, either. Politicians, actors, music stars and other public figures are equally, and unfairly, protected by carefully constructed, fake public information designed to make us think of them as the impossibly near-perfect people they’re not.

Speaking of which, I see where noted red-ass Jeff Kent has, to the sorrow of very few in the Dodgers family, announced his retirement. Talk about an athlete who was “godded up” by a media determined to make a silk purse of a sow’s ear. Only on a team that featured Barry Bonds, the superstar athlete that everybody loved to hate, could Kent manage to be perceived as a warm and cuddly, positive presence.

B. Bonds, incidentally, was an equal-opportunity target. Pretty much EVERYONE he played with, regardless of race, creed or color, despised him. So it’s no surprise that Kent detested Bonds, even though he pretty much owed his MVP to the fact that he was batting behind Bonds. But it’s of more than passing interest that Kent throughout his career seemed incapable of positive interaction with ANY of his African-American or Latin teammates.

Not that you need to be a role model to be Hall of Fame-worthy. Ty Cobb and Steve Carlton are two nasty characters with impressive accomplishments who come to mind immediately. Just don’t try to tell me that Kent was/is a great human being as well as — statistically at least, for several years — a great player. I’ll accept creeps getting honors if their play deserves it, but please, media types — this means you, Bill Plaschke et al. — stop turning sports into a Miss America competition. All I care about in a beauty contest is how good the contestants look in swimsuits. The talent and Q&A competitions are there for the same reason that Playboy has articles — to provide plausible deniability for testosterone-crazed men and teens. Sports “journalism” really, really doesn’t anything but the sports equivalent of the swimsuit competition.

In truth — at least based on publicly available information — Kent’s been roundly detested by his teammates at every stop in his 18-year career. It’s no state secret that his constant carping and criticism intimidated a lot of the younger Dodgers, and that the team didn’t start its late-season surge last year, even after the acquisition of Manny Ramirez, until Kent was out injured for an extended period. Coincidence? I think not.

And for all those who’ve decided that Kent deserves to be in the Hall of Fame just because he’s hit 351 home runs over an 18-year career, please, you’re killing me. He did have one transcendent MVP season in San Francisco, and has had a few other pretty good years at the plate. But just to put matters in perspective, he was batting behind Barry Bonds during his best years — years when Bonds was on base half the time, which meant that Kent saw a lot of fast balls to hit. Even then, his career OPS is under .900 — not exactly the stuff of which legends are made. And he was an absolute hog on ice in every other aspect of the game. No speed or range. Indifferent base runner. Sieve on defense. So-so arm. We should expect just a little more, defensively, from a second-baseman. Joe Morgan should refuse to attend another induction ceremony, if Jeff Kent ever joins him in the Hall.

Regarding Mr. Kent’s shocking rush of manufactured humility and accessibility, and that endearing rush of tears now that he’s retiring, can anyone take it seriously? Apparently so, including our noted, now-national radio talking heads, Petros “P Daddy” Papadakis and Matt “Money” Smith, who aren’t dumb by a long shot, and who’ve got their fair share of justifiable cynicism, except, apparently, when they score a sought-after interview. They practically gushed over how “sincere” Kent was when they interviewed him soon after the retirement presser.

Oh, puh-leeze. “Sincerity” is an imponderable at the best of times. All they can say with any confidence is that Kent finally managed to play to the hilt the part of a person exuding “sincerity.” It’s like the famous Hollywood saying: The most important quality is sincerity — if you can fake that, you’ve got it made. We should never, ever allow public statements and posturing to override the evidence of our own eyes, ears, and brains. Which, in Kent’s case, is that the door couldn’t hit him fast enough on his way out.

While we’re on the subject of objectionable human beings, how about Mark McGwire’s own brother writing a tell-all book about Mark’s steroid use, and justifying this breach of confidence as an expression of love for his brother. Love for the potential book advance fee, more likely. With brothers like that, who needs enemies?

Another season, another Yao Ming injury, eh? A knee, this time — nice break from the monotony of broken metatarsals and tibiae. No offense to Mr. Yao. I like what I know of his personality, and he’s certainly become one of the NBA’s dominant centers — when healthy.

And there’s the rub. It sure seems to me that the big problem with the Houston “brains trust” is that, every season, they fall into the trap of assuming that THIS year, they’ll have Yao and T-Mac on the court for most of the season and the playoffs. Each year, as with Charlie Brown trying vainly to kick a field goal with Lucy holding that ball, their optimism is cruelly dashed. Since the result is almost foreordained you’d kind of think that, smart guys as they are, they might, just once, factor in the likelihood — nay, the near-certainty — of these injuries when making their personnel decisions.

Have I recently stepped without my knowledge into the Bizarro World of DC Comics’ fame? That’s the planet named “Htrae” (“Earth” spelled backwards), ruled by the Bizarro Code of “Us do opposite of all Earthly things! Us hate beauty! Us love ugliness! Is big crime to make anything perfect on Bizarro World!”

I thought that must be what happened when I read that Dan Reeves — yes, DAN REEVES — is interviewing for the job of offensive coordinator of the ‘49ers. Reeves certainly has a decent resume AS A HEAD COACH. After all, he took the Broncos to 3 Super Bowls and the Falcons to 1, although let the record reflect that his teams lost all 4. Let the record also reflect that special last-quarter heroics by one John Elway made two of those appearance possible. Just ask any Cleveland Browns fan.

Given that he was one of the all-time greatest QBs, I tend to defer to the judgment of the aforementioned Mr. Elway regarding the offensive “chops” of Mr. Reeves, Since Elway has publicly stated that he believed he’d have had at least 1, and probably 2, Super Bowl rings but for the stifling effect of Mr. Reeves’s primitive, antediluvian schemes and conservative play calling, I think I know what kind of reference Mr. Teeth would provide, if asked.

Of course, the great, supremely self-assured ones like Elway always believe that they should have won every game. But anyone who saw the stodgy, unimaginative Broncos’ offense of the Reeves years — Three Amigos notwithstanding — has to admit there’s at least some substance to Elway’s beef. That anyone in his right mind would even think of interviewing the conservative, unimaginative Reeves to be an offensive coordinator in today’s NFL boggles my mind. It really is an “old boys club” — stress on the “old” — isn’t it?

I’m shocked, shocked by the revelations in Joe Torre’s new “tell-all” book about the Bronx Zoo. Not at the revelations themselves. None of them is any great state secret.

It’s no great secret, for example, that Brian Cashman appeared to withdraw his previously unrelenting support for Torre at the end. I would only note that the Yankees paid Torre a salary higher than any other manager in the game was making, for one purpose only: to get the Yanks to, and win, the World Series. Given that the Yanks didn’t accomplish either goal during Torre’s last 4 seasons at the helm, it wasn’t entirely out of line for the Yanks to “insult” Torre by making some of the monstrous salary they offered him contingent on results.

It’s also no secret that A-Rod realized that Derek Jeter is the leader of the Yankees, whatever his personal stats might be, and that also understood that in order to have any chance of being accepted as a Yankee, he had to kiss Jeter’s behind and do his best to emulate him. Whether that constitutes a “Single White Female” type obsession, as the book coyly suggests, is another matter.

I also suspect that the book doesn’t put the whole “fixation” into historical context. The beginning of the end for A-Rod’s image as a baseball hero, in my opinion, came with that infamous 2001 Esquire interview, in which he said he’d been a buddy of Jeter’s, then ingenuously intimated that Jeter was overrated, uttering such nuggets as: “Jeter’s been blessed with great talent around him”; “he’s never had to lead”; and “You go into New York, you wanna stop Bernie [Williams] and [Paul] O’Neill. You never say, ‘Don’t let Derek beat you.’ He’s never your concern.” That’s one of many interviews regarding which A-Rod undoubtedly wishes he could have a “do-over.” His relationship with Jeter never recovered. In that historical context, maybe it’s understandable why A-Rod, having poisoned the well so thoroughly, felt his best course once he joined the Yankees was to toady obsequiously to Jeter.

It’s also no great secret that A-Rod has some serious self-image and confidence issues, and that he’s been resented by teammates at both Texas and The Zoo, who regard him as “A-Fraud,” both because he tends to choke when his skills are most needed, and because he comes across in interviews as a phony. This isn’t some special, new revelation by Torre.

I will say, however, that if Torre really wants to float the “A-Rod’s teammates consider him insincere and a phony” claptrap, he’ll have to indict every player, coach, and manager. EVERY one of those people — including Torre himself — is insincere and phony in dealing with the media. What sets A-Rod apart is that (a) he’s actually often — to his detriment — MORE honest with the media than others, but (b) he seems constitutionally incapable of making himself SEEM sincere, which is, after all, the whole point of the exercise. If Torre really wanted to criticize A-Rod, he should have written that teammates hate A-Rod, not because he’s not “sincere,” but because he’s just no good at faking “sincerity,” which is what it’s all about because he’s just not all that good at faking sincerity. Which brings us to Jeff Kent’s farewell address, already discussed.

Let the record also reflect that, for all his insecurities, foibles and peccadilloes, A-Rod did manage to win two AL MVP awards while Torre was coaching him. And let the record also reflect that A-Rod, selfish, narcissistic bastard though he may be, volunteered to learn how to play Third Base so that Jeter, clearly his inferior in the field at that position — it’s not even a close call — and declining in speed and skills annually, could continue to remain in his comfort zone.

What shocks me, rather, is why Torre did the book in the first place. What could he possibly hope to gain from this diatribe, other than, maybe, some book sales? Even if everything in the book is true, and not just self-serving “I managed good but boy did they play bad” Leo Durocher-style self-promotion, so what? It turned out that almost everything Jose Canseco said in his book about steroids was also true, and Canseco is now reduced to boxing against Danny Bonaduce to raise a few shekels.

Not that Torre’s likely to need any tag days, but it seems to me that by publishing this book, he’s certainly reduced the number of possibilities he might have for future employment, the need for which may come sooner rather than later, once the Man-Ramless Dodgers return to their losing, boring ways. Let’s just say that Mr. Torre’s Teflon coating now appears to be sporting a few scratches.

Greater love hath no man than to sacrifice his urine for his team? Disgraced former Mets’ clubhouse attendant Kurt Radomski, who seemingly procured ‘roids for everyone along the Eastern seaboard with back acne and rage problems, now has revealed that he took a urine test or two for Dwight Gooden, back when the drug-addicted pitcher was failing those tests with regularity, no matter how hard he studied for them. No word whether, like Jerry Seinfeld’s mother taking a urine test for Elaine Benes in one of the better “Seinfeld” episodes, the testing company reported that Gooden was menopausal — or white.

“Sugar” Shane Mosley gave a pretty good accounting of himself last Saturday night against Antonio “The Tijuana Tornado” Margarito, proving once again that many athletes are at their best when their life outside their sport is in chaos and disarray. The ring was a refuge for Mosley. Or so it seemed.

The most telling blow of the night, though, was probably landed by Mosley’s trainer, Nazim Richardson, who observed the pre-fight hand wrapping and spotted a substance on Margarito’s wraps that, when moistened, turns them into blocks of concrete. (I exaggerate for effect, but then again, I’m not on the receiving end.) Aside from maybe losing focus when the cheating was discovered, it sure seems that Margarito also lost a lot of punching power. Strange, huh? Makes one wonder how much of Margarito’s previous win over Cotto was Margarito, and how much was his wraps — unless one believes that this is the first time in his career that Margarito’s camp has attempted to perpetrate such fraud.

Kind of reminds me of the much-ballyhooed 2001 Bernard Hopkins – Felix Trinidad bout, where Hopkins’s camp exposed Tito as “Cheato.” And not by accident, either, since the Hopkins cornerman who discovered the similarly illegal wrapping of Trinidad’s hands was — the very same Nazim Richardson.

Hopkins probably would have won the fight anyway, but he might have taken a career-threatening pounding in the process. Remember, Trinidad was one of the few fighters who not only didn’t lose punching power as he ascended in weight class, but actually, incredibly, got more powerful. He’d battered Fernando Vargas so badly that Vargas was thereafter a dead man walking as far as ever again being an effective boxer was concerned. Without the benefit of “one first iron, the other one steel,” though, he couldn’t do squat against Hopkins.

Richardson modestly sought to deflect praise for his crucial contribution: “When you have a good game plan and a very good athlete it’s easy. He turned his pressure style against him.” True dat. But as Mike Tyson once sagely observed: “Everybody’s got a good plan ‘til they get hit.” Mosley’s plan was just fine against hits (few thought they may have been) from gloves not loaded with cement. It’s not clear how well the plan would have worked had the original wrappings been allowed to remain. Seems to me that if I were any boxer on the planet, I’d move heaven and earth to make sure that I had Nazim Richardson representing my interests at the wrapping ceremony.

I find it interesting that the coach of the Dallas high school girls team that beat its opponent 100-0 has been fired after the result became a national cause celebre. I don’t know how I feel about it, actually.

I’m not particularly happy that he had his girls pressing and launching threes to the bitter end, mind you. And it didn’t help matters any that the girls who were subjected to such humiliation were from a special school for girls with learning disabilities.

But there’s blame enough to go around, there, I think. This was a league game. What were the school officials of the losing team’s school thinking of when they allowed their charges to play in a league where such humiliations are possible?

If the idea was that the learning-disabled girls should be mainstreamed, not coddled, well, 100-0 scores may well come with the territory. True, the opposing coach could and should have had his players hold onto the ball more. He most certainly could have told them not to keep pressing or launching threes. But such unfortunate stuff happens. And, by all accounts, the girls on the losing team took the loss in stride, and haven’t been scarred for life.

My main beef with the whole uproar, though, is that this game was hardly the first girls’ contest where the winner wins by 100 points or so. Far from it. Blowouts like that are a regular occurrence in girls’ basketball.

A few years ago, just f’rinstance, a girl named Epiphanny Prince scored 113 points in her high school’s 137-32 win over Brandeis High School. I don’t recall anyone expressing a lot of sympathy for the Brandeis team, and the emotional scarring they got when Prince’s team kept running up the score of a game long since decided, just so she could get the record. Heck, no. Quite the contrary. Her coach, in fact, said after the game: “At the half, we thought she had a chance to break the record so we just let her go.”

Ah, I begin to divine the principle. If all you’re doing is beating a hapless opponent by 100 points, it’s evil and the coach should be fired — after being tarred, feathered and run out of town on a rail. But if you’re crushing an overmatched opponent by a c-note, and it’s all in pursuit of an individual scoring record for one of your players then, heck, everything’s just hunky-dory, and it’s in the very best tradition of American sports.

Like Hell it is. In some ways, it’s worse. Oh, and by the way, while Brandeis High obviously scored 32 more points than the hapless girls of Dallas Academy, they also gave up 37 more, so it was worse based on simple arithmetic.

You may remember Ms. Prince, since she went on to become a key player on the Rutgers women’s team that lost to Tennessee in the women’s NCAA Final Four in 2006, then were called “nappy headed ho’s” by Don Imus. I guess Ms. Prince is somewhat of an expert on emotional devastation at the hands of others, since she claimed she and her teammates had been “scarred for life” by Imus’s crude comments. Too bad she couldn’t have realized that her own crass pursuit of a meaningless high school scoring record might have “scarred” some other young women for life.

Closer to home, Cheryl Miller, later a beloved USC All-American, NCAA champ, Olympic gold medalist, and respected basketball sideline reporter for TNT, scored 105 points in 1982 for Riverside Poly against Riverside Norte Vista. I’m sure the ladies of Norte Vista were absolutely overjoyed to have been forced to become the Washington Generals to Miller’s team’s Globetrotters. In a pig’s eye.

The most egregious humiliation, though, in my opinion, was inflicted by Lisa Leslie, then at Morningside High, against South Torrance High, when she scored 101 IN THE FIRST HALF. For some strange reason, the South Torrance girls didn’t take kindly to being used as punching bags, and had the effrontery to refuse to take the floor for the second half, despite entreaties by the Morningside coach — obviously a regular prince of a fellow — and Leslie herself to come back out so she could score another 100 and set a record no one could match. Funny, but I just can’t recall a whole lot of outrage after that archetypal display of crassness and contempt.

So please, ladies and gentlemen of the media. Don’t be wringing your collective hands about the heartlessness and inhumanity of the coach of Dallas Covenant School, unless you’re prepared to be evenhanded in your umbrage, and dump on Epiphanny Prince, Cheryl Miller, Lisa Leslie, and their high school coaches just as lustily as on that poor benighted schmuck down in Dallas.

Please send comments and criticism — especially criticism — to thonglaw@sprynet.com, where it will be dealt with appropriately.