Players love making $$$ off signing autographs

SEVERAL readers were disappointed to see the Hall of Fame induction ceremonies on MLB Network immediately followed by an ad selling Derek Jeter commemorative bats.

Disappointed, but given that Jeter’s last season as a Yankee was spent trying to suck every nickel out of his fans’ pockets, few should have been surprised. Ah, that classy Farewell Luncheon, at which his devoted were charged $2,500-$4,500 to pose with him for autographed photos.

Oddly enough, that brings us

to Douglas Kennedy, son of Robert Kennedy, who recently declared his support for the parole of his father’s assassin, Sirhan Sirhan.

Doug Kennedy was a rookie Post news-side reporter when he accompanied me to a news conference at which the NYC Department of Consumer Affairs announced a settlement with Hall of Famer Johnny Bench for false advertising.

Bench, a frequent salesman of his autograph on home-shopping shows that appeared in NYC, had allegedly made fabricated claims or was party to claims about the value of his autograph, which he’d sell on these shows for what he huckstered as a fraction of their value.

One claim included the come-on that the purchase of Bench’s autograph on a few baseballs would one day be worth so much, their resale would fully fund the college education of the purchaser’s child. To watch and hear Bench try to sucker his fans this way was nauseating.

Kennedy was appalled, not at Bench’s unconscionable avarice, but that anyone found anything wrong with Bench’s bogus claims.

➤ Who’d have thought the day would arrive when Dennis Rodman became an advocate for common sense? During a “Full Send” podcast posted on Sept. 1:

“It’s just very hard to watch [the NBA] once you’ve played the game the way we played it. Intensity, just competitiveness. But now it’s more like, you know, I don’t want to watch players coming down shooting 50 footers. That’s not basketball.”