Paul ONeill and David Cone cant keep lying like this

Sorry, fellas, but I’m tired of turning on ball games and being lied to.Many of us get enough of that elsewhere, as in everywhere.So as far as I’m concerned, David Cone and Paul O’Neill were lying to us Tuesday during YES’s Yankees-Mets telecast.

I can’t believe that they believe what they told us.That’s why excessive pandering — telling TV audiences that wrong is right, that they (and we) absolutely love what, off the air, they dislike — is helping to bleed baseball dry by 1,000 self-inflicted cuts.The Mets led, 6-0, when Juan Soto homered to make it 6-1.Soto, who by now needs no introduction — he’s never shy to demonstrate his immodesty — exchanged a leaping high-five with third base coach Luis Rojas before reaching home to trade a flamboyant, rehearsed, lengthy handshake with Aaron Judge.If we didn’t know five runs better, we might’ve thought the Yanks had just won the game, thus this wasn’t beneath Judge’s in-game, professional dignity.But O’Neill and Cone were thrilled, or pretended to be thrilled.O’Neill: “You like that bat-flip, huh Coney!?”Cone: “Wow!”O: “Almost went into the Mets dugout!”C: “Big league style points!”And then a slow-motion replay of the bat flip appearing to Cone’s and O’Neill’s continued merry approval.I was convinced they’d fail a polygraph test; convinced they were full of it, insulting to YES’s respect-the-game audience.Cone, who pitched 18 MLB seasons, would’ve been good with Soto’s response to one of his pitches? He’d have given him a smile and tug on his cap in salute? Or would there be a knockdown pitch brawl on the boil?O’Neill, who had anger management issues as a big leaguer, would have enjoyed Soto’s display had his slumping team been losing, 6-1? As Soto’s opponent, he would have benignly suffered Soto’s repetitive, no-context act? Or would he have been instantly infuriated?Cone and O’Neill would encourage the kids in their lives to exploit any sport t...