Today we pause to give our eternal thanks to TBS for allowing us a few brief, presumably live moments of the last can’t-make-it-up inning of Thursday’s Yankees-Guardians playoff game. 

Until those final brief glimpses it was touch-and-go — whatever that means — as to whether TBS had any idea what was going on down on the field, as the national network had become immersed in scouring the stands to provide closeups of fans, many with their eyes closed, deep in spiritual devotion praying or at least meditating on behalf of the team in the religion of their choice. 

Pick a praying fan! Pick 10! TBS found scores to choose among! 

Yep, standard, 21st Century live, big-event sports television. Anything worth doing is well worth overdoing as a matter of thoughtless habit, like sitting on a bench carrying a “Wet Paint” sign just because. 

The games networks purchase for billions of dollars to exclusively televise? Nah! 

Show everyone else in the ballpark watching what we tuned in to watch. Indiscriminately utilize all the TV cameras we schlepped along to fractionalize your attention! Best seat in the house? By pregame design it’s no longer in your house. 

But sports and TV now meet at the corner of Discomfort and Bloating. 

Thursday’s frantic finish featured three current or former closers, rather than the standard two, regardless of how the eighth-inning designated automaton pitched. 

The Yanks’ current closer Luke Weaver and former closer Clay Holmes allowed four hits, a home run each. 

Cleveland’s lights-out closer, Emmanuel Clase, brought in early as a matter of desperation, allowed three hits, two of them home runs. Thus another postseason single-game record: Three “closers,” all allowed at least one home run. 

Cleveland eventually sent in Pedro Avila, the official winner. He allowed two walks in his one inning. He’d replaced Andrew Walters, who’d allowed no base runners and struck out Juan Soto looking, thus Walters had to go. 

But that’s another matter. Mickey Mantle’s World Series records and totals have all been wiped out, according to MLB’s hype-headed TV partners, by what 21st Century players have compiled starting with wild card games! 

Or as an ESPN graphic once read, Bobby Thomson homered “to win the 1951 NLCS.” 

Thursday’s Yanks-Guardian game, at least what we were allowed to see of it, was one for the ages. So was the telecast: the Stone Ages.

Can’t avoid Spike, no matter how hard you try

Reader Michael Mattice recognizes Spike Lee as the attention-starved, NBA and now WNBA game-intruding, Bozo-outfitted, front-row “sports fan” obligatorily seen to make a scene on Yankees postseason telecasts that … 

“I just opened my mailbox and Spike Lee jumped out! He’s everywhere!” 

Any of TV’s back-slappers recall the 2012 episode in which Lee recklessly tweeted out the Florida address he thought was the residence of George Zimmerman, who was arrested in the shooting death of 17-year-old African-American Trayvon Martin? 

What was Lee’s motive? To have Zimmerman shot by vigilantes or just have his house burned down? 

Either way, Lee nationally disseminated the wrong address. This selectively blind advocate for racial justice who thus creates fright among pandering media, had targeted an elderly couple, the McClains. 

Where you and I would’ve been widely condemned, our careers ended for what Lee did, Lee got away with an “Oops” and an undisclosed settlement. Then it was back to screaming “racism” and his self-entitled spoiled brat front-row presence at nationally televised ballgames. 

Not that it mattered to Lee, but Zimmerman was acquitted of second-degree murder. 

I guess what we can’t miss would be too impolite to mention on the air, but Cleveland first baseman Josh Naylor, listed as 5-foot-11, 250 pounds, even by walk-around civilian standards, is fat. But the truth shall not be told. 

Reminds us of ESPN’s treatment of the two-year crime wave — at least 25 arrests, one for vehicular homicide — of the Georgia football team. Given that Georgia is an ESPN business partner via ESPN’s ownership of the SEC Network, ESPN plays exceptionally stupid — even for ESPN. 

Now that Peyton Manning endorses just about anything — he now appears in TV ads pitching Bush’s baked beans — he’s all set up to endorse a product that reduces flatulence. 

NFL TV local assignments for Sunday: 

Eagles-Giants, 1 p.m. on Fox: Chris Myers, ∫. Jets-Steelers, 8:20, NBC: Mike Tirico, Cris Collinsworth. 

Kinda like Charles Barkley blowing up after endorsing Weight Watchers (Barkley, admitted problem gambler, appeared in ads enticing young males to gamble on sports) and ESPN’s Chris Berman endorsing weight-loss elixirs while starring in ads for Applebee’s three-cheese chicken penne. 

Then there’s “Blackish” star Anthony Anderson in a heartfelt, solemn public service ad on behalf of the American Diabetes Association is also seen in ads for sugar-enriched Smirnoff vodka. 

Knicks owner must love oppression

Jimmy Dolan’s Knicks will take sports-washing blood and oil money to wear “Experience Abu Dhabi” patches on their various Third World made uniforms this season. 

Yes, by all means, experience Abu Dhabi. 

But perhaps, given the United Arab Emirates continuing rotten record on basic human rights — arbitrary arrests and detentions, women as male-subservient servants and gays as personna non grata — it might be best to give this Islamist monarchy wedded to an ancient oppressive theocracy a look-away pass. 

But the altruism-cloaked NBA and its biggest stars — including knee-jerking, pick-and-choose justice-for-all LeBron James — will choose communist Chinese TV and merchandise money, and Arab oil and blood money over genuine pro-democracy altruism every time. 

And now that Red China prepares its invasion of democratic Taiwan, what’s Adam Silver’s plan? Whose lives don’t matter? 

Mendy Rudolph come back to us! What I miss most about how the NBA and college hoops ignore violations for traveling (steps) and palming the ball (dribbling from below to make cutting to the basket or beating tight defenses so much easier) are the say-it-all hand signals from the refs. 

Palming was shown as it was — dribbling from below or too much to the side. Traveling was signaled by rotating the arms rotating at chest level. 

The indelicate trackside term for it is “bridge jumpers” — those who place big bets on odds-on favorites to show for a return of 10 or 20 cents on every two dollars wagered. 

In Oct. 5’s four-horse $100,000 Chllingworth Stakes at Santa Anita, Sweet Azteca went off at 1-9. Due to the short field, there was only win and place wagering, but how could a bridge-jumper lose a hefty place bet on a prohibitive favorite? 

Sweet Azteca, the sure thing, finished fourth — last. The place horse, Irish Wahnie, paid a whopping 74 bucks to finish second in a four-horse race. 

I’m gonna share this with you, and only you, because you’ve read this far: 

I know a guy who knows a guy who says that the key to Sunday’s Jets game is that their defense “has to get off the field.” Remember: Just between us.