Perhaps foremost among the perils of residing on a one-way street is the conditioned reflex to look only one way.

Such limited vision has even brought our leisure-time sports to the precipice of revulsion, along with everything else around here.

Consider that many contemporary social activists and their simple-minded adherents, resolute in their ill-considered convictions, are now portraying Caitlin Clark as a third- or fourth-generation representative of the Ku Klux Klan.

Why not? In addition to being a white, popular basketball player who has brought needed TV attention and revenue to her sport — 10-16-year-old girls love her as if she were Taylor Swift — Clark’s WNBA team is the Indiana Fever. Klan-friendly Edward Jackson was voted Indiana’s governor, just recently, 100 years ago in 1924. Aha!

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Caitlin Clark signs autographs for fans before the start of WNBA basketball game against the Liberty in May. AP
The one-way street predictability of many of our most active activists includes media attention far exceeding their credibility. So, to ask good questions of those protesting bigotry and racism on unfirm ground leads to baseless but easy accusations of bigotry or racism. Thus, one’s unsturdy or even erroneous activism can reliably double as both cudgel and shield.

This media hustle, taken from Al Sharpton’s enduring playbook, is virtually fail proof. Jemele Hill knows and plays the game.

The former ESPN race-is-my-game regular knows what’s good for her single-themed business. Thus, given that the WNBA is 70 percent black and roughly one-third gay — Clark is straight — Hill claimed, “We would all be very naive if we didn’t say race and her sexuality play a role in her popularity.”

Hill continued: “While so many people are happy for Caitlin’s success — including the players; this has had such an enormous impact on the game — there is a part of it that is a little problematic because of what it says about the worth and the marketability of the players who are already there.”

OK, fine. Not such a far flung opinion. But doesn’t that work both ways?

The players are happy for Clark?

Saturday’s on-court blindside attack she suffered from opponent Chennedy Carter, followed by the joyous leap from her seat on the bench from Carter’s teammate and Clark’s college nemesis, Angel Reese, when Clark was shoved to the floor was evidence of players’ happiness for her or resentment of her?

And resentment for what? National TV coverage? Maximized exposure? Would it not be reasonable to at least partially credit Clark’s WNBA presence with the new luxury of charter flights for all players? Or should the travel be segregated to match Hill’s point?

Postgame, Carter said, “I ain’t answering no Caitlin Clark questions.” That’s her freedom of no speech right.

But was it not “problematic” to Hill that Carter and Reese are black? Or that Carter, alone, might be “problematic” on any day as she was suspended for challenging a former WNBA teammate, also black, to a fight?

“We would all be very naive if we didn’t say race played a role” as per Hill’s take on Clark, but not after what went down when Hill was knocked down and Reese jumped for joy? One-way street, only?

Several years ago while on ESPN, Hill did a dance of delight while reporting that black rapper Kendrick Lamar had been selected to entertain at a college football game.

Given that Lamar had recorded such charming lyrics as, “If I gotta slap a p—y ass n—a, I’ma make it look sexy. If I gotta go hard on a bitch, I’ma make it look sexy” among other similarly boastful but vulgar, race- and women-degrading “tunes,” I asked Hill in print why she — as a self-respecting, outspoken, black woman — would joyously promote Lamar.

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Chennedy Carter is seen checking Caitlin Clark to the ground.
Her answer came in a tweet: “I honestly consider it an honor that Mushnick wrote about me. I aspire to be this grumpy one day.”

Fine. I’m grumpy. Watching ESPN makes me especially grumpy.

But she didn’t answer the question, and still hasn’t. That’s life on a one-way street.

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Angel Reese is guarded by Caitlin Clark during a recent game. Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

Betcha we don’t know all of the story yet

Homicide detectives will be the first to tell you, “There’s no such thing as a coincidence.”

Tuesday, the same day MLB hit unknown Padres scrub Tucupita Marcano with a lifetime ban for gambling on his team last season — while he was an injured and inactive Pirate — the Rob Manfred Hall of Justice announced that super-duper star Shohei Ohtani has been totally exonerated as a baseball gambling suspect.

Sorry, not buying it. I’m not so easy as to accept a “he’s innocent” statement so it all can just blow away.

MLB owes us this answer: How was Ohtani’s former pal and interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara, able to establish millions of dollars in credit and $17 million in debt with bookmakers without the considerable assistance of an extremely wealthy and influential backer/debt service manager?

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Shohei Ohtani gestures for a base runner to advance on a wild pitch from the Pirates during a recent game. Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports
Or did Ohtani’s former pal have other pals with $700 million contracts?

Also Tuesday, three minor leaguers were suspended for betting on baseball. But more likely, from where they sat — and bet — they were nailed for obeying MLB’s relentless commercial prods to bet, bet, bet on baseball.

By the way, according to MLB, sentenced-to-life Marcano, “Ultimately lost all his parlays involving the Pirates and only won 4.3% of all of his MLB-related bets, overall.”

Thus, one or both of two things: 1) This helps explain why parlay bets that legal sportsbooks, including those in business with MLB, are hustled hard, as they’re super sucker bets, and/or, 2) Marcano’s tout was Mike Francesa.

Juuuust a bit outside

Saturday, on the first pitch of the bottom of the first of Diamondbacks-Mets on SNY, Francisco Lindor took it for a ball. That stood to conspicuous reason. The pitch was high and outside. Gary Cohen could’ve said “Ball one,” or nothing at all as it was self-evident. Instead, he called it, “A non-competitive pitch, ball one.” Really? Geez.

Reader Michael Balduino to Rob Manfred upon conflating Negro League stats with MLB stats: “History is meant to be learned from, not revised. And history shouldn’t be used as a public relations stunt.”

Mets manager Carlos Mendoza makes lead-blowing, game-losing pitching changes as if he trained under Aaron Boone. … What’s that? Ya don’t say.

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Mets’ Francisco Lindor hits a home run during the sixth inning of the Mets’ win over the Nationals on Wednesday. AP

TV folks are so uptight on issues of race, religion and ethnicity that good questions aren’t asked and interesting tidbits remain unspoken. The NHL Panthers have a forward named Evan Rodrigues. What in the name of Scott Gomez is a Rodrigues doing in the Stanley Cup Final? A: He was born in Toronto, his father in Portugal.

Against the Mets on Saturday, Arizona’s Christian Walker hit a grand slam. As he appeared to delay his start to first by watching — SNY didn’t show his entire trip — Walker had a chance to hit a thoroughly modern three-run single.

Tuesday was the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre of pro-democracy demonstrators in China. Estimates of the total murdered range from several hundred to several thousand. Nike, Adam Silver, Rob Manfred, Roger Goodell, team owners and outspoken pro stars including LeBron James, joined with the Chinese Communist Party in ignoring that the horror happened.