MINNEAPOLIS – The thing is, sports and movies should go hand in hand. They should be a natural fit, like milk and pancakes. There isn’t a sports fan I know who isn’t also a movie buff, and it makes sense, because sports and movies both allow a place for the Inner Geek inside all of us to breathe, to thrive, to find a place in this world.

Seriously. The same folks sitting around a saloon who can kill hours at a time trying to out-do each other with the kind of trivia questions that would fry Ken Jennings’ brain (a personal fave: name the four pitchers in history who pitched for both the Yankees and the Mets and also pitched a no-hitter in their careers for other teams) are the ones who will swap “Godfather” lines ad nauseum all night, and who, when a cell phone goes off and an irate wife calls wanting to know where her husband is, fall over themselves to be the first to channel Clemenza: “Why don’t you tell that nice girl you love her? ‘I love-a you with all-a my heart, if I don’t-a see-a you again-a soon, I’m-a gonna die …'”

So the mystery isn’t when sports movies get into our minds and stay there, the way “Cinderella Man” has this weekend, the way the re-make of “The Longest Yard” did last weekend.

The mystery is that so few of them are really any good.

This isn’t brain surgery, OK? Making a good sports movie shouldn’t be such a hit-and-miss proposition, because the formula isn’t all that subjective. In other genres, it isn’t that simple. What makes a good thriller work, for example? It’s hard to put your finger on why “Marathon Man” works but “The Italian Job” doesn’t. Same thing with screwball comedies.

“There’s Something About Mary” leaves you with cramps in your sides from laughing so hard, while “Stuck on You” leaves you grinding your teeth with non-laughter. And we could devote a whole other column to the wonders of chick flicks, how a girlfriend can see “Steel Magnolias” and have her life changed forever, while a boyfriend can’t wait to go outside and beat his head against a wall.

Sports movies aren’t that complex. Seriously.

The formula is simple: the good guys always win, and when they don’t win, they look awfully heroic doing it. Throw in a few memorable, quotable lines, and you’re good to go.

So no matter how many times you hear Apollo Creed mumble “Ain’t gonna be no rematch,” at the end of “Rocky,” you always yell out: “Don’t want one!” even as you know there are a whole lot of Rocky rematches on the way. No matter how often you see Coach Norman Dale pull a Lenny Wilkens and draw up a play that calls for using Jimmy Chitwood as a decoy, you always join the rest of the Hickory High starting five and roll your eyes, wanting to go all Latrell on Dale’s P.J. moment. And no matter how many times you puzzle over Matthew Modine not only getting to sleep with Linda Fiorentino, but also beat Shute at the end, you find yourself yelling at the screen every time.

That’s the classic formula. But the best part about making a great sports movie is that it isn’t the only one. There are several secondary recipes, too, among them:

The Heart Tugger: Gary Cooper mastered the art in “Pride of the Yankees,” even if he looked less likely to be able to hit a good major-league fastball than Jason Giambi. When Billy Dee Williams asks you to love Brian Piccolo, too, toward the end of “Brian’s Song,” you do as you’re told. Watching Robert DeNiro struggle behind the plate in “Bang the Drum Slowly” conjures images of Mike Piazza, except that it wasn’t just DeNiro’s career that was dying. And if you don’t want to call your pop after watching “Field of Dreams,” then you’re clinically dead.

The Satisfying Ending: The book version of “The Natural” – where Roy Hobbs strikes out – would have left theater-goers rioting. Better to have Hobbs rattle a dinger around the light tower and go home to make babies with Glenn Close. When Sean Astin comes roaring around the Georgia Tech offense like Julius Peppers at the end of “Rudy,” even the most ardent Notre Dame hater has to cheer. And when Mike McD draws the nut straight against Teddy KGB at the end of “Rounders,” you say: thank goodness ESPN allows us to consider “Rounders” a sports movie now.

Reel Life: The real advantage sports movies have is that so often the stories they tell are better than any hack writer could come up with. “Raging Bull” would have been extraordinary if there had never been a Jake LaMotta; the fact that there was makes it astonishing. Same deal with the eight Black Sox depicted in “Eight Men Out” and the 20 dreamers featured in “Miracle.” And, of course, “Seabiscuit.”

Locker Room Humor: There’s no equivalent in chick flicks, let’s be honest. But in sports movies we have “Bull Durham,” we have “Slap Shot.” We have “Fast Break.” We have “North Dallas Forty,” featuring one of sports’ movies all-time best friends, G.D. Spradlin, available whenever the script calls for “overbearing coach” (“NDF,” “One-On-One”) or “crooked senator” (“Godfather Part 2”). And, of course, we have the original “Longest Yard,” which will forever be immune to Adam Sandler’s virus.

It should be so easy. Yet how do you explain “Any Given Sunday,” which may be the most tedious movie ever made? How do you explain how Kevin Costner can look so completely natural as a golfer (“Tin Cup”) and a pitcher (“For Love of the Game”), yet there isn’t a redeeming thing about either movie? How do you explain Rockys III through V? Or any of the “Major League” movies? How do you explain how “Friday Night Lights” could be such a wonderful book and such a woeful movie? How do you explain how a rich real-life character like Bobby Knight could be so thoroughly misinterpreted – twice (once fictionally by Nick Nolte in “Blue Chips” and once straight-up by Brian Dennehy on ESPN)? How do you explain “Little Big League,” and “Summer Catch” and the movie last summer where the guy who played Jesus played Bobby Jones?

You don’t. You just move on, best you can, and try to answer trivia questions (such as the one at the top of this column. Answer: John Candelaria, Dock Ellis, Al Leiter, Kenny Rogers).

(Mike Vaccaro’s e-mail address is WriteBackVac@aol.com. His Yankees-Red Sox book, “Emperors and Idiots,” is available in bookstores everywhere.)

VAC’SWHACKS

I guess the fact that Kaz Matsui – whom the Mets were urged to enrich thanks to the recommendation of Bruce Wilpon – has become the latest Mets project goes awry shows that the ability to sabotage the Mets extends to every branch of the Wilpon family tree.

You’d have to say that in casting Hal Holbrook as Deep Throat, the men who made “All the Presidents Men” did a pretty credible job. Not as good as Robards/Bradlee, but certainly better than Redford/Woodward.

There would be something splendid about P.J. Carlesimo getting either the Knicks’ or the Timberwolves’ gigs, while Latrell Sprewell – ex-Knick, soon-to-be-ex-T-Wolf – has to start looking for work to help feed his family.

I have to admit, whenever I watch 50,000 people going crazy at a soccer game, I feel like that nerd in junior high who doesn’t ever get the joke.