Old dog, no tricks.

Bob Costas, trending done at NBC, called MLB Network’s Thursday night NLDS Game 1 of Braves-Dodgers, and soon reminded us that he remains what he always was: someone with too much regard for baseball to lie for it.

Early in the MLBN telecast, Costas said that though it’s still early in L.A., this playoff game is well attended but well short of a sellout.

That brought to mind the NBC Sports days when imperious, “plausibly live” Dick Ebersol ruled the kingdom, back when deceiving viewers — suckers — was a top priority. NBC promos would lie about World Series starting times by 30-45 minutes.

So when Costas, now 66, hit the air in the lengthy unadvertised pregames, among the first things he’d report is the actual time of the scheduled first pitch. He wasn’t going to mess with his integrity or ours.

And it was Costas, to the best of my knowledge and recollection, who first, in the late 1980s, put a suspicious TV voice to the unnatural feats he and we were witnessing: sudden sluggers of all ages in suddenly muscle-massed bodies hitting, 50, 60, 70 home runs.

While most of baseball’s broadcasters celebrated these remarkable overnight feats, it was Costas who hinted that whatever’s going on carries an inescapable stench. It made no natural science sense.

In fact, many team and national baseball broadcasters still avoid mentioning the steroid era, pretending they didn’t know and still don’t know, thus viewers couldn’t possibly have known, thus still don’t know what went on during the watch of fast-tracked Hall of Famer, Bud Selig.

So what seemed like a small and perhaps insignificant observation from Costas on Thursday served as a reminder that he’s a different kind of team player — he still plays for our team.

And as if in concert with Costas’s presence, MLBN’s telecast provided an unfettered view. There was no K-Box to distract, obstruct and confuse. All we could see was a baseball game. Can’t imagine anyone erupted in despair over its absence.

One other thing that seemed special, or at least different, Thursday night was the postgame work of Fox field reporter J.P. Morosi.

The Brewers had just beaten the Rockies, 3-2 in 10 innings, in another of those bullpen roulette numbers (12 pitchers, 19 strikeouts, 11 hits, 4 hours), when Mike Moustakas lined a two-out, 0-2 pitch single to right.

On Adam Ottavino’s first 0-2 pitch, Moustakas, a lefty batter, swung and 99 percent missed. He tipped the ball off by such a tippity tip off the end of the bat that the ball rolled to a slow stop in the opposite batter’s box.

That wasn’t lost on Morosi, whose first question to Moustakas was, “What kind of deep breath did you take when that foul tip was not caught?”

https://twitter.com/MLBONFOX/status/1048021703832432640

Moustakas laughed and said, “I turned back and saw that I got another life!”

Thus Morosi disregarded the Sideline TV Reporters’ Field Manual, which instructs the reader to ask, “How important was it for you to win this game?”

Help me. Am I nuts I or just dreaming? Both?

Before Milwaukee’s .179 pinch hitter Keon Broxton whiffed with two on Thursday, Fox’s Kenny Albert noted Broxton has the majors’ highest strikeout rate, 38 percent. Yikes! So how can he be a pinch hitter?

Though the Brewers led, 2-0, in the eighth, Broxton was hitting for reliever Josh Hader, who’d just struck out three, retiring the four batters he faced. He appeared untouchable.

But by-the-book manager Craig Counsell summoned his latest closer, Jeremy Jeffress, who quickly allowed three hits and two runs to tie the score.

This can’t be how postseason baseball is played, too, can it? Help! Nurse!

What a coincidence … nearly: Seahawks linebacker Mychal Kendricks last week pleaded guilty to insider trading and was indefinitely suspended by the NFL.

Kendricks’ take in the scheme was reported to have been $1.2 million.

Fascinating. In a very similar insider trading case, Phil Mickelson, judged to have made a dirty million dollars, was neither indicted nor prosecuted. He was merely ordered by the SEC to pay back his take to the government, plus interest, a total just shy of $1.2 million.

The writing remains on the wall: For all the analytics — can’t spell it without anal! — the Dodgers lost last year’s World Series in seven because they tried to hit home runs every at-bat while the Astros were busy hitting the ball. The Dodgers had nine fewer hits and struck out 11 more times — both a about a game’s worth.

Thursday’s Game 1 of the Braves-Dodgers NLDS was new-age standard: In 8½ innings, 10 pitchers, 21 strikeouts, 11 hits.

Though the Dodgers won, 6-0, three of the boppers in their lineup — Manny Machado, Yasiel Puig and Yasmani Grandal — totaled eight strikeouts against unaccomplished pitchers. The Dodgers hit three home runs — but totaled just five hits.

Win by the sword, lose by the sword. Of course, that doesn’t mean that in 2018, the Dodgers’ opponents will have any better ideas.

Near the end of last Sunday’s Browns-Raiders, Dean Blandino, ex-NFL VP of officiating now with Fox, essentially said that a totally incorrect replay reversal that denied Cleveland a game-ending first-down could turn the Browns from winners to losers.

And that’s what happened. But remember: It’s all about getting it right!

Dave Anderson, longtime Times sportswriter who died Thursday at 89, was a relentless gentleman who treated the newbies in his midst with respect and concern. I knew him for what I wish I could be and what made him a successful writer: He was a great listener.

The Ryder Cup, in which Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson went a combined 0-6, sure took whatever artificial sizzle there might have been for that Tiger vs. Phil pay-per-view pig roast, didn’t it?

If there’s a constant in the Todd Bowles era, it’s that the Jets’ offense often seems like 11 strangers playing as one for the first time.

Ever got the feeling that if Ron Darling really sounded off on what has happened to The Game, they’d have to call security?

Enslaved by TV money, Division I college football has become the NFL in that losing teams are assigned the most logical and comfortable fall and winter start times, early Saturday afternoons.

Erik Kratz, 38-year-old transient catcher seen singling for the Brewers on Friday, this season was seen and heard as a Yankees Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre farmhand in an episode of YES’ superb series, “Homegrown.”

WFAN’s Bart Scott on Friday: “Even a broken clock is right once a day.”