The future ain’t what it used to be, to paraphrase Yogi Berra.

Sports prognostication is a highly over-rated endeavor. Making predictions on the outcomes of games, especially when it comes to pro sports, is an exercise in futility.

Why don’t we just call it by its name? Guesswork.

You might as well try and predict the weather or how Pennsylvania will swing in a presidential election.

Sports is, by its very nature, unpredictable. That’s partly why we watch.

My advice is this: Don’t try to predict sports, at least not in a public forum. You may know more than most people do about sports, but you’re just setting yourself up for embarrassment if you go on record saying as much.

Sports columnists, commentators and reporters everywhere devote a significant portion of their on air, in print or radio time to making predictions. And if they’re really good at it, they’re right about two-thirds of the time, at best. That, of course, means they’re wrong at least 33 percent of the time.

Maybe it makes for good entertainment, but what’s the point really? It doesn’t make the game any more enjoyable to watch.

In last week’s column, I made an attempt to predict the outcome of baseball’s postseason, and I fell flat on my face.

I predicted, for one thing, that the Cubs would sweep the Dodgers in the NLDS, because they’re a superior team. Result: the Dodgers swept the Cubs.

I also predicted the Angels would beat Boston in the first round in five games, because they’re the best team in baseball. Result: Boston in four.

I was right on in calling the Phillies over the Brewers in four, but wrong in thinking the Brew-ers’ one win would be the result of the stellar pitching of C.C. Sabathia, who ended up losing Game 2, surrendering five earned runs in just three and two thirds innings in his only start of the series.

And I was right on Tampa in four over Chicago, for a whopping .500 winning percentage.

Now my entire playoff predictions are off, because I had the Cubs and Angels going all the way to the World Series.

I might as well have flipped a coin.

The problem is that so-called “expert” sports predictions are based on past performance and statistics and which team or player is better on paper.

But games are not played on paper, and the best team doesn’t always win. That’s why they play the games.

What is not taken into account is that element that makes sports so great, and always worth watching: On any given Sunday, or Saturday or weekday for that matter, any team can beat any other team, at least in most cases.

Standout players can go down with injuries or simply have a bad game. Players of lesser apparent ability can step up and have a career game or start a streak. Upsets occur every day or every week, and are almost impossible to predict.

The 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team beat the USSR, for example. The New York Jets beat the Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III. Buster Douglas KO’d Mike Tyson in 1990. Oregon State stunned No. 1 ranked USC just a couple weeks ago.

Name your upset. And if you called any of those, I’d like to speak with you.

Even the worst NFL teams win a game or two out of 16. Even the best, with two notable exceptions, the 2007 New England Patriots and the 1972 Miami Dolphins, lose one or two or three or four. Even the worst baseball teams win about 60 games and the best lose about 40 percent of the time.

Have you ever taken part in an office sports pool? Sure, they’re fun. But if you do, avoid at all costs using your knowledge of sports to make your predictions.

If you know anything about the sport in question, you probably know too much. Don’t make your picks based on your knowledge of who’s better than whom on paper, or any other statistical analysis. Try picking based on your favorite animals or colors, cities you’d like to visit or have been to, or just throw darts or draw from a hat. Close your eyes and point, or pick at random. Roll dice if you must.

I’m not doing very well in my office football pool, but I think that’s because I’m not doing any of those things.

So here are my new baseball predictions, based on an unscientific, but apparently more effective method of prognosticating — drawing from a hat.

The Dodgers apparently are going to the World Series, and are going to beat Tampa Bay. Which means, yes, Tampa will beat Boston in the ALCS. I would never have guessed that.

A slightly different method reveals that either the Indianapolis Colts or the Detroit Lions will win the Super Bowl this year, depending on whether you go with the team name or the city when determining which team is 11th in the NFL alphabetically. Eleven was the number I drew from a hat.

At 2-2 and 0-4 respectively, it looks like one of them is going to be heating up soon.

Here’s my suggestion: Ignore predictions, sit back, relax and enjoy the game. By all means root for your favorite team. Somebody might just surprise you.

Mirror writer Erik Wander can be reached via e-mail at ewander@kodiakdailymirror.com.