The president and a baseball star spent a day together in the White House.

This isn’t a set-up for a bawdy joke, but the origins of a cry from the world of sports that Donald Trump is, in fact, a decent, vital and, most important, sharp-as-a-tack dude.

“I’m envious of the mental energy that this guy has, the sharpness he has, the comedic nature of everything he says,” marveled former New York Mets pitcher Noah Syndergaard — or “Thor,” as he’s known — after spending time in the Oval Office.

Syndergaard sounded completely gobsmacked while describing the budding bromance.

“I just really don’t quite understand the negativity or the pessimism he gets with the media and some of the population of this nation, because he’s just such a patriotic guy and he cares so much about everybody and just the health of this nation and the health of this world,” raved Syndergaard, 33. “He’s just a joy to be around.”

The feeling, evidently, is mutual.

“Professional baseball pitcher, Noah Syndergaard, sometimes known as Thor, and he looks like Thor to me,” Trump cracked. “That is a man that I wouldn’t want to get in a fight with.”

Later, the prez and the pitcher played catch with kids outside the White House; Syndergaard showed youngsters how to do pull-ups.

The all-star hurler was in DC with other pro athletes to celebrate the reinstatement of the Presidential Fitness Test to promote exercise in public schools nationwide.

He gushed on Trump amid a torrent of hate emanating from leftist journalists and Democratic politicians.

Illinois Gov. JD Pritzker recently made the reckless claim that the Republican suffers from dementia.

But it seems the slur was a political, not a physical or cognitive, diagnosis borne out of Pritzker’s own acute case of Trump Derangement Syndrome.

The disease appears highly contagious.

The phoniness is stunning and dangerous in this age of ramped-up political violence and non-stop assassination attempts.

I’ll get attacked for expressing this, but I got to know Trump a bit before he became who he is, and I can attest that the man Noah Syndergaard encountered — funny, sharp, unfiltered, patriotic, perhaps imperfect, but a joy to be around — is the real DJT.

And the folks who once craved his presence and now bare their teeth are the worst kinds of hypocrites.

I saw for myself how so many in the media clamored to get pre-presidential Trump to attend their events.

His presence was not just a badge of honor, it guaranteed the success of whatever product one was backing.

But now that it’s fashionable to pile on Trump contempt, the same people who once begged for The Donald’s company express nothing but unhinged hatred in his direction.

I once attended a party in New York City celebrating the publication of a novel by a minor media figure desperate for publicity.

As the festivities were underway in Midtown Manhattan, all of a sudden, in walked Trump and his wife Melania.

For the author, it was pay dirt!

She fawned over her special guests, fetching drinks — maybe Diet Cokes for Trump the teetotaler.

Trump, then a real-estate developer and reality-TV star, even said a few words praising the writer, who seemed thrilled.

He did this not for money, not for glory or for any type of gain.

He did it simply to help out a working journalist.

And his seal of approval paid off in abundance, selling more than a few books.

Which is why, after he was elected president of the United States for the first time in 2016, I was stunned to see that the very same scribe, then producing opinion pieces for a daily newspaper, specialized in attacking, ridiculing and demeaning the man whose favor she had so assiduously courted.

Shameful behavior, but all too common.

Late-night TV hosts base their careers on Trump hatred.

Reporters one-up each other, layering on epithets: Racist. Sexist. Fascist.

These are the journos and TV talkers who spiraled into depression when Trump was voted out of office in 2020.

Say what you want, of course, he was good for ratings.

Love him or loathe him, the Donald Trump discovered by Noah Syndergaard is not a stage-managed version of a human being.

He is authentic. He truly loves this country and cares for its people. He speaks his mind. Always.

And the same folks who wish him ill will miss him when he’s gone. Again.