Ego can’t process interview snubs

TRUTH monitor @backaftathis nailed Mike “Let’s Be Honest” Francesa yet again last week, after Sitting Bull claimed he’ll no longer conduct (paid) oneon-one interviews with Eli

Manning because Manning no longer conducts such interviews.

Yet Manning had just completed a one-on-one with ESPN’s Sal Palantonio.

Seem familiar? After the Masters, Sitting Bull claimed that though Ti

ger Woods’ caddie, Joe LaCava, is a buddy/big fan of his — who isn’t? — Team Tiger absolutely forbids LaCava from being interviewed, even by his Royal Majesty. That day, LaCava was interviewed on Michael Kay’s ESPN-NY show and by Chris Russo on SiriusXM.

That reminds me: Before the British Open, Francesa claimed he’d already picked the winners of “four or five” of this year’s pro golf events. We cut him a break, challenging him to name just four. But nothing. And still nothing. You don’t suppose he was lying, do you?

But such megalomaniacs find fame and fortune as assigned by broadcasting execs who wouldn’t know good from bad, bad from worse.

Wednesday, while mindlessly channel-flipping, I bumped into Stephen A.

Smith on two ESPN channels. Though I couldn’t discern what he was hollering about — nor did I try — his approach in both sessions was the same: He was yelling at the camera, a transparently self-inflated gasbag pretending to be the last word on any issue — by self-appointment.

Smith has regularly been caught making bogus, badguess expert claims — including his “expert” preview of a nationally televised Chargers-Chiefs game in December, when he delivered matchups of players who were widely known not to be playing — yet ESPN has chosen him as its go-to know-itall. What a sustaining con.

➤ John Sadak, Howie

Rose’s weekend Mets radio replacement — Rose was inducted into the New York Baseball Hall of Fame — worked almost exclusively in indecipherable code. His descriptions, including “a jam-lift,” would have been fine had the radiocast carried a closedcaption English translation.

Again, ignore what you see, believe only what you’re told. The attendance for Wednesday afternoon’s Orioles-Yankees game was announced as 43,909 — a conspicuous exaggeration, again, unless roughly 20,000, again, purchased tickets they didn’t use, sell or give away.