A consumer’s guide to the best and worst of sports media and merchandise. Ground rules: If it can be read, played, heard, observed, worn, viewed, dialed or downloaded, it’s in play here.

What: “BASEketball”

Tradition and sports, like a lock-jawed Doberman and his bone, are tough to separate. There have been some minor revolts (interleague play and cartoonish team jerseys), several coup d’etats (free agency, relocation, expansion clubs), and corporate raiders have colonized professional sports, but the game on the field remains the same. A send-up of this world, ripe as it is, deserves better than the moronic “BASEketball”.

Matt Stone and Trey Parker, the creators of Comedy Central’s wicked “South Park”, turn up on the big screen as Beavis and Butt-head incarnates named Remer and Coop, attempting to tap into the frustrations of the common fan by inventing a game that brings back old-fashioned values. You just have to ignore the fact that the game was devised to “score” with women and conforms only to their beer-impaired physical capabilities.

Somehow, the game becomes a runaway success, and Coop and Remer become the stars of the Milwaukee Beers and the sports world reclaimed by the fans. But when their team’s kindly owner (Ernest Borgnine) dies and the Beers must win the national title to keep the team out of the hands of the owner’s dopey widow (Jenny McCarthy), the fellows find it hard to stick to their own rules--no selling out and no relocation.

Apart from a clever opening sequence (which doesn’t involve the two stars), the rest of the film is an overly long vanity project spewing gross-out jokes and sight gags aimed squarely at the demographic from which Stone and Parker were spawned. Making token appearances, Bob Costas, Al Michaels, Reggie Jackson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar don’t do much more than dish out assists to ensure “BASEketball” follows a tradition that’s easily broken--comedy films and laughter don’t always go hand-in-hand.