You hear a lot of dumb, indefensible, presumptuous things about sports.

That’s probably because there are a million avenues to air out dumb, indefensible, presumptuous thoughts these days. (Yes, besides the occasional newspaper column, smart guy.)

Few interludes in life are funnier than when Joe Beerstein whips out his soap box – yeah, we know, most of us would settle for him cracking open a bar of soap once every round of the playoffs – and parrots whatever his favorite talk radio host spouted that day.

“No event in sports can compete with Game 7 of a Stanley Cup playoff series,” Joe opines.

Really?

I thought the final 90 seconds of the last two Super Bowls were fair-to-middlin’.

North Carolina vs. Compass Directional Commonwealth A&M in the first round of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament never lacks for excitement and logs vastly superior ratings. Then again, a filibuster on C-SPAN2 generally moves the Nielsen needle more vigorously than any NHL playoff game.

There’s a palpable spike in the intensity level when it’s win-or-tee time on the pond, but that’s more an indictment of an anonymous, endless regular season than an indicator of can’t-miss television.

Hockey’s majestic postseason is one of those myths the apologists have repeated so often that even the self-reporting “casual” fans (98.6 percent of us) began believing it.

Carolina’s cheap-shot artist gets a garbage goal with the same motion housewives use to mop up cat puke, and we’re all treated to an entire morning-after of hearing how gripping and grueling it all was.

Just stop.

“Funny how David Ortiz can’t hit Casey Fossum’s weight now that he’s being tested for steroids,” Joe jabs.

I’ve repeated that cheesecloth-veiled accusation myself to a few of my cohorts, in part to demonstrate the absurdity.

Startling revelation alert: Between 1995 and 2003, every one-through-seven hitter and each every-fifth-day starting pitcher in Major League Baseball injected, swallowed, chewed, snorted, applied or imbibed something at least ethically questionable in an effort to keep pace with the most egregious cheaters.

Each. Every. All. No exceptions.

“Not Slick, Skinny, Sammy Shortstop,” Joe retorts.

Yes, him too.

Ortiz authored a lifetime’s supply of wallops and walk-offs after Bud Selig started pretending to give two urine samples about the integrity of his sport. With or without assistance, he was the most feared hitter in the American League for a five-year stretch.

Two plausible explanations exist for why No. 34 lost his groove in July 2008 and suddenly morphed into Craig Counsell in ’09. He’s either swinging scared because of that balky wrist, or he’s simply done. It happens in baseball on the back side of 30, and often it happens suddenly. (Jim Rice, circa 1987, anybody?)

Maybe a weekend off will help Papi start seeing pitches in slow-motion again. Maybe the Sox need to package prospects and obtain a new designated hitter before July 31.

The truth is probably somewhere in the middle. But if anybody needs to lay off the drugs, it’s the idiots trying to retroactively discredit everything Ortiz accomplished this decade.

“The NBA is a star-driven league,” Joe sneers.

Perhaps, but you aren’t going anywhere in the playoffs without an asteroid or two in your nine-man rotation.

While the dapper, disabled Kevin Garnett tests our kids’ ability to lip-read the F-word during timeouts, Glen Davis, Brian Scalabrine and Rajon Rondo are the reasons the Celtics are still alive the third Sunday in May.

Rockets-Lakers went to Game 7 with Yao Ming and Tracy McGrady occupying the Dyan Cannon seats and immortals Carl Landry and Aaron Brooks emerging as all-world for a week.

Tim Duncan’s Spurs needed Bruce Bowen. Michael Jordan’s Bulls were incomplete without John Paxson and Steve Kerr.

It’s the ultimate team endeavor, and yes, it’s far-and-away the best unscripted theater on the tube at this time of year.

Unless you prefer humor to drama.

No shortage of that at the moment. Right, Joe?

Kalle Oakes is a staff columnist. His e-mail is [email protected].