RARE is the opportunity to accuse Bud Selig of cleverness, but I think he pulled one over on the public last week. He laid down a trail of bread crumbs to Pete Rose’s door, then alerted the media.

Add flavor, stir, bring to a simmer. Presto, Pete Rose Frenzy Week, sponsored by Bud Selig – with more to come.

Many people on many occasions have lobbied MLB on behalf of Pete Rose. So why now? Why, after Rose’s sustained exclusion from the game had become a virtual given, does Selig unilaterally declare baseball’s gates at least partially open to him?

Whose image does Selig seek to rehabilitate, here? Pete Rose’s or Bud Selig’s?

As a commissioner, in the old fashioned, historical sense that he represents the best interests of baseball – as opposed to the best interests of team owners – Selig’s reign has been miserable.

That teams have been allowed to enter the ticket-scalping business, that adults have joined kids in sleeping through the World Series, that modern sluggers are aided by a see-no-evil drug policy, that a cup of soda costs five dollars are Selig-sustained or worsened realities. Then there was Selig’s botched, embarrassing attempt at contraction.

Has anything for the baseball fan changed for the better under Selig?

That’s where Rose comes in. He can provide Selig a populist issue from which Selig can catch a big wave and ride it for a while, maybe forever.

The reinstatement of Rose can create for Selig a baseball legacy that’s actually linked to baseball instead of greed.

Pete Rose makes for Selig the perfect “fan’s man” issue. It’s the kind of populist issue that won’t cost team owners a dime.

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The problem with “SportsCenter” anchors is that hip, sarcastic writing and downbeat, wise-guy deliveries can’t prevent ESPN from turning them into shills. Saturday morning’s “SportsCenter” included the following “news”:

a) A lengthy feature connected to that night’s ESPN movie about Bear Bryant. b) A report from the day’s “big” college basketball game, Temple-Illinois, which would follow on ESPN. c) A look at the cover of the latest ESPN, The Magazine. d) A feature on the Nets’ Jason Kidd and Richard Jefferson, who, at one point, spoke about making ESPN’s highlights reels. e) Endless hype about the Heisman Trophy, which would be presented that night on ESPN.

Know of any cool infomercial hosts? Neither do I.

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Randy Cross, who worked Jets-Bears for CBS, yesterday, is another chatterbox who tells us that we can see what he’s talking about in a replay when we can’t see it because it didn’t happen the way he tells us it did.

Ron Dunham, the father of new Ranger goalie Mike Dunham, was, until last year, the head golf pro at Forsgate CC in Jamesburg, N.J. And there isn’t a nicer man in golf.

The next time ESPN reports on the rotten graduation rates among Div. I football players, it might note that Thursday night’s “College Football Awards” show on ESPN pulled more than 20 student-athletes far from school while classmates were studying for or taking finals.

Sports Culture Game of the Week: Manasquan defeated New Brunswick, 14-13, in the Central Jersey Group II championship last week. The game’s pivotal play was NB’s missed two-point conversion, backed up 15 yards after the kid who scored the TD was flagged for showboating.

ESPN’s Dick Vitale, at the end of “The LeBron James Game,” Thursday night, offered a soulful scold.

“All those leeches,” he said, “leave the kid alone,” Vitale said.

Apparently, ESPN’s decision to nationally televise a regular-season high school basketball game because of James, and the fact that James is the cover boy on the latest issue of ESPN’s magazine, eliminates ESPN as one of those leeches.

We’ve long felt that Brent Musburger pre-determines his on-air behavior. Last week, calling Blazers-Nets, then Hornets-Lakers on ESPN, he low-keyed it, which makes us wonder why his ABC college football assignments, start to finish, cause him hysteria.

When Evander Holyfield can’t find his way home from around the corner, remember this past Saturday night, when Holyfield, 40, fought and lost on – and for – HBO.