IT’S as if ESPN now holds daily executive meetings to figure out how it can invite even more ridicule.

“Hey, why don’t we take those ‘Kick Me’ signs and fasten them to the front of our shirts?”

Near the top of the Thursday night/Friday morning “SportsCenter,” co-anchor John Anderson reported that in Game 1 of the NLCS, Carlos Beltran became “the first Met outfielder with a home run and an assist in the same postseason game.”

In that same “SportsCenter,” the crawl at the bottom read, “Georgia coach Mark Richt named one of four co-head coaches for 2007 Hula Bowl, Jan. 14, on ESPN.”

No kidding, it’s as if ESPN can’t do enough to make jerks of everyone.

In Tony Kornheiser, assigned to Monday Night Football, ESPN promised a counter-broadcast-culture fresh idea, a fellow sharp enough and bold enough to hear, see, speak and otherwise sort through the garbage.

This past Monday, during Ravens-Broncos – because ESPN can’t help itself and because its terms of agreement demand everyone be reduced to an ESPN/ABC/Disney shill – Kornheiser had to chat-up an actor from ABC’s “Desperate Housewives,” a fellow who just happened to be in Denver and then wander into ESPN’s booth.

And in those kinds of see-through, credibility-stripping, ridicule-begging moments, ESPN turns Kornheiser into everyone else at ESPN: Just another follower of orders that leave all parties, but especially viewers, treated like jerks.

Tuesday morning, on the ESPN Radio/ESPN2 simulcast of the “Mike & Mike” show, the recurring question of the day was, “What do you if the you come back into the room and your wife or girlfriend has turned off [ESPN’s] Monday Night Football to watch [ABC’s] “The Bachelor?”

The better question asked by Mike Greenberg and Mike Golic would have been, “What do you do when a promising morning drive sports show is turned into a see-through, hear-through shill-a-thon?”

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It’s now a given that postseason baseball sends teams into price-gouging frenzies. It’s no longer even a matter of buyer beware; you will be ripped off, it’s just a matter of how much.

This postseason, the Yankees doubled the regular-season price of lowest-cost, Kinney-contracted Yankee Stadium parking from $13 to $26. And from there, it became even more abusive.

When Game 2 against the Tigers was postponed until the next afternoon – but not until a full house had spent more than two hours and a fortune on newly marked-up food and drink before it was sent home – patrons who returned by car again were forced to pay to park.

In other words, those folks paid $52 to park before they saw a single pitch. The previous night’s parking receipt, for a game that went unplayed, was not accepted.

And, just as Bud Selig gives such ripoffs his tacit approval, not a discouraging word is heard from City Hall, Attorneys General offices, Consumer Affairs folks or from others in local government who, it’s worth noting, have no trouble procuring tickets to postseason games.

One of the Mets’ and Yankees’ most conspicuous business partners, Steiner Collectibles, recently took a pile of Mets’ postseason tickets and conducted an on-line auction, an enterprise most of us recognize as ticket scalping.

In Los Angeles, the cost of two tickets to Mets-Dodgers only began with the face value of the tickets.

There was an additional $12 “facility charge” – in case you planned to buy the tickets and enter the stadium – an $8.50 “convenience charge” – same as the “inconvenience charge” – and a $3.55 “order processing fee” – should you actually want your order filled.

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After Fox fired Steve Lyons for making a racially insensitive comment directed at the Hispanic heritage of colleague Lou Piniella, Lyons apologized and claimed he was kidding. But even when Lyons was serious, he talked nonsense. In Game 2 of the ALCS, he noted that A’s switch-hitter Nick Swisher “hit only eight of his 35 home runs from the right side.”

Only? In 556 at-bats Swisher batted right-handed just 141 times.

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“I’ll tell you this: This is the easiest Round 1 opponent in the Joe Torre Era. You could not have a duck in front of you, on one leg, worse than this Tiger team.” – Mike Francesa