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Michael Jordan’s Hornets have fired first-season radio play-by-player John Focke for mistakenly tweeting the N-word when he thought he’d typed Nuggets into his cell phone. Focke was typing on the fly, trying to keep Hornets fans on top of an NBA game. Unless Jordan and company believe the preposterous — that out of the blue, …

David Graeber, who helped organize the Occupy Wall Street movement, has died in Venice, his agent said. He was 59. A professor of anthropology at the London School of Economics, Graeber studied anarchism and anti-capitalist movements, and challenged the world to respond to the plight of Kurds in the Middle East. “David was a hugely …

As always, follow the money! Forgive my insensitivity, but what happened Thursday night at Citi Field was easier done than said because it was a matter of money. In this case, not much of it was at stake. And every person at or near the top of sports who publicly declares his or her support …

Perhaps we expect better from ESPN because it’s a 24/7 sports network, the last place we’d think would wreck every sport it touches. Yet, here we are. Again, and still. To tune to ESPN to watch a live sports event is to be conditioned — air-conditioned — to anticipate a production that will challenge the …

Who’d a thunk it? In our exchanges, he’d never even cussed. Can’t say the same for myself. I know Fox and Reds broadcaster Thom Brennaman long enough to be shocked that he’d speak a slur for homosexuals — the F-word — even when he thought he was off the air, let alone while attached to …

On YES last Friday, David Cone said it as a brief aside, as if it were a throwaway thought barely worth his breath. In the bottom of the sixth of a scoreless game, Rays catcher Mike Zunino squared to bunt on the first two pitches, both balls. He then flew out on a 2-0 count. …

This has been a confusing summer. Even my flip-flops keep changing their mind. Clearly, what’s left of this baseball season is being played exclusively for TV revenue. When we last left, 10 months ago, The Game was in a badly diminished state, record-breaking home runs and record-breaking strikeouts, little baseball played in between. That condition …

With the Mets and Yanks planning to pipe in old crowd noise during their home games — fabricated excitement that should only inspire ridicule — I wonder if players will be called out of the dugout to tip their caps to cardboard cutouts. And how about recorded “Boston Bleeps!” chants? Anyway, these are a few …

Those self-entitled NBAers, including career misanthrope JR Smith, who have seen fit to share with America their Disney Prep woes — substandard bedding, food that doesn’t meet with their palates — reminds me of an old gag: A man, way down on his luck, enters a monastery where he takes a vow of silence. Every …

To think that Mike Francesa begged Buddy Holly not to board that flight. What’s going on now — the indiscriminate often reckless and wanton destruction and wishful, cosmetic reconstruction of American history — is nothing new in sports. In 1935 the Heisman Trophy was first awarded. Named for John Heisman and presented to the best …