It was the great golfer Lee Trevino who correctly told us never to complain about what you shot. Ninety percent of the people don’t care, he said, the other 10 percent wish you had been worse.

So it has been with this situation involving the Mets front office, something more Hollywood than New York. A team executive, Tony Bernazard, was fired after challenging minor leaguers to a fistfight. Then the general manager, Omar Minaya, blamed a New York Daily News reporter, Adam Rubin, for Bernazard’s demise.

“Tragedy,” cracked Woody Allen, “is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall down a manhole. What do I care?”

Long Island didn’t care because the Washington Nationals dispatched their manager, Manny Acta, recently. Yet, we’re all supposed to be concerned about the Mets? New York believes so.

Everything in New York — A-Rod’s back, the unsold season tickets at the two new ball parks, the Knicks’ inability to draft Stephen Curry who, heh, heh, was taken by the Warriors — is supposed to be of national interest.

On the field, the Mets are perhaps the biggest bust in baseball, and who can ignore that collapse? But a personnel director challenging a group of minor leaguers because he didn’t like their attitude? And then the GM getting into a grumping contest with a newsie? It isn’t Iran or the U.S. economy, that’s a given.

Unless you’re a New Yorker. Then it’s the only thing that matters. Unless you’re a Yankees fan. My friend, Bill Madden, the sharp baseball guy from the Daily News, said the Yankees and Mets didn’t have games as much as they had 162 incidents.

What Madden’s paper said in the headlines on the back and front pages was “Smears of a Clown,” and “Shirt Hits the Fan.” And no matter what else, those lines are both telling and brilliant. Newsday bannered, “Big Apple Circus,” while the Post, called it “Amazin’ Fireworks.”

Why doesn’t this nonsense happen in Minneapolis? Or San Diego? Or Cincinnati? If a Mariners executive lost his temper, would anyone in Seattle lose perspective? (Since the city is down to one printed paper, would anyone in Seattle even know?)

People screw up every day, in sports and out. You make a mistake, you correct the mistake, apologize if need be, and then move on. Except in New York. Nobody ever moves on in Gotham. Bill Buckner still is a villain or a hero, depending on your viewpoint. Twenty years from now Adam Rubin will be. In New York.

Reporters are told to tell the story, not be the story. Rubin blew that one. Rather, Minaya did. He contended Rubin wrote critical articles about the Mets because he wanted Bernazard canned so Rubin could get Bernazard’s job. Now there’s a new one.

Every journalist thinks he knows more than the GM or head coach or manager, but heaven help him if he actually accepted the position. Especially in New York. As the lyrics go, paranoia strikes deep.

Rubin confessed only that he didn’t know how he was going to cover the Mets any longer. May I suggest with a couple of straitjackets and a hidden microphone? It’s one thing when Fox News and Obama can’t get along, but a baseball journalist and a GM? Help!

It’s time for the Mets executives either to take a vacation or take a hike. These are ball games, not life-threatening decisions. What happened to the Mets big shots was that their team fell apart, which anywhere is looked upon unkindly and in New York is akin to passing military secrets to the Taliban.

When teams fail to meet expectations, even if the reasons — injuries for example — are legitimate, the sad souls who put them together, Minaya, Bernazard, et al, tend to fall apart as quickly as the ball club. For the past couple of years, Minaya was treated as both delightfully brilliant and pleasant. Then all of a sudden, he’s accusing a lowly sports writer of conspiracy.

Panic is what it is. Understandably. Nothing can be approached rationally in New York, and so Minaya couldn’t approach Adam Rubin’s knocks rationally. There they were one of the most famous executives in baseball and one of the stars of a tabloid newspaper in a messy struggle.

How unfortunate. Or some might say, to borrow from Lee Trevino, how wonderful.

As a reporter since 1960, Art Spander is a living treasure of sports history. A recipient of the Dick McCann Memorial Award — given for his long and distinguished career covering professional football — he has earned himself a spot in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He was recently honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award by the PGA of America for 2009.

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