This expression really bugs me. And you see it in newspapers and magazines, hear it on the airwaves … a lot.

“Heart and soul.”

As in, “he is the heart and soul” of this or that team.

I want usage of this to decline about 90 percent. Because it’s used too often and, more important, because it so rarely is accurate.

It is my experience that guys described as the “heart and soul” of a team … almost never are.

What it really means is, they are players who are popular with fans and media. Athletes who appear to sign autographs or do good deeds … or have an image of doing that, thanks to fawning media people doing some myth-building.

The most recent usage of this I saw was in the Los Angeles Times, over the weekend. David Eckstein was declared “the heart and soul” of the 2002 World Series champion Angels.

Like … what?

I love “Eck” as much as anyone, but he wasn’t in the top 10 of “most important Angels” in that season. The dude never talked, so he wasn’t some clubhouse leader. He played hard, but that whole team played hard.

But he was little and cute and scrappy!

So that’s why he is the “heart and soul.”

The term just never is really appropriate. I remember Paul Lo Duca being described as the heart and soul of the Dodgers — because he was accessible and a late-bloomer. I guess. (His trade away from the Dodgers was widely decried because, of course, the Dodgers were giving up their “heart and soul.”)

Turns out, instead of being described as the Dodgers’ H&S … Lo Duca probably should be remembered as the “pusher and supplier” of performance-enhancing drugs in the Dodgers clubhouse, at least if the Mitchell Report is accurate.

It seems as if the definition of “heart and soul” is “some modestly talented player for whom fans have an affinity (because the guy seems to play hard) and journalists have connections.”

What H&S ought to be is …”the guy we need to be competitive” … “or the guy without whom we’re in a world of hurt.” And that usually is a great player, not some great talker.

Derek Fisher might be the current Lakers H&S. With the Angels, maybe Mike Napoli. For the Dodgers, perhaps Russell Martin. Or Vin Scully, actually, which tells you the fix the Dodgers are in, if their H&S hasn’t swung a bat since his college days at Fordham 60-some years ago.

Most H&S guys are anything but. The real heart and soul of good teams are their best players. Kobe Bryant. Vladimir Guerrero.  Matt Kemp. Guys most of us probably wouldn’t even like, if we hung around them.

But those are the guys who really matter to teams. The athletes who put you over the top.

Give me real talent. You can keep your heart and soul. In fact, you can have mine, if you give me a real player in return — and promise to stop yakking about this whole “heart and soul” business.