With apologies to Sir Walter Scott, “Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we determine to weave a tangled web.”

YES’s incomprehensible hiring of Carlos Beltran to call Yankees games (after the Mets signed him to manage their team, before terminating the deal due to his significant role in that Astros’ sign-stealing scandal) is one of those modern TV mysteries, like ESPN signing Troy Aikman for $90 million.

In the top of the sixth in the first game of the Angels-Yankees doubleheader Thursday, YES showed Angels manager Joe Maddon in an extended, animated, somewhat intemperate chat with the four umpires. Understandably, Michael Kay, David Cone and Beltran were unable to figure out what it was about.

As it turns out, Maddon suspected the Yankees were stealing signs. As he explained between games, among ace starter Shohei Ohtani’s 75 pitches, just three resulted in swings and misses.

“They’re really good at reading pitches. They’re very good at it,” Maddon said. “But I’m not accusing anybody of anything, except that they’re good at it. If you’re able to acquire things through natural means, I’m all into it. I think it’s great.”

YES did well to follow the story. Early in the second game, Maddon’s quotes were posted and read by Kay.

But seated beside Kay at the time was Beltran, a leader of perhaps the most notorious, admitted and punished sign-stealing ring in MLB history. Yet, he was asked nothing and volunteered nothing about Maddon’s take.

Having admitted his significant role in the Astros’ scandal, and per Yankees general manager Brian Cashman’s wishful claim that it played a big role in the Astros defeating the Yanks in the 2017 ALCS, and then in Houston’s World Series win, it was incumbent that we heard, either by obligation or prodding, from Beltran on this.

Such a natural follow-up would have been interesting, perhaps very interesting, even had Beltran said, “No comment.”

But nothing. Back to Beltran for more of his usual: stating the in-game obvious.

Such unfulfilled moments are now common among networks eager to hire the disreputable based on the cynical, desensitized conclusion that those who did extra dirt to their sports will draw extra viewers.

As Robinson Cano first batted on a Sunday nighter after returning to the Mets from his first drug suspension, ESPN’s leading man, Alex Rodriguez, two-time drug cheat and liar, gave Cano a look-away pass. Not a word about what the audience well knew they most had in common.

That was both an insult to viewers and a reminder that ESPN was unable or unwilling to find a clean ex-player or professional broadcaster to serve as its face, voice and ideal of Major League Baseball.

Did ESPN, then, and YES on Thursday, think it could hide from the tangled webs of their own weaving? Did they think we’re that stupid?

Actually, from the moments Beltran and Rodriguez were chosen to be expert analysts, that’s exactly what they at least hoped: That we would buy anything, then sit there like the grinning saps they figure we are.

Too many are missing the point on this new Saudi-backed pro golf venture. It’s not just about making the most money the market — any market — will allow. It’s about millions-for-nothing, compromised “competitions” and worse.

Nothing is more antithetical to legitimate competitive sports than appearance fees.

You can arrive on a gurney, shoot 100 and be paid tens of thousands of dollars.

And if that’s unimportant to the likes of Dustin Johnson, Phil Mickelson and Greg Norman, that the money is supplied by an oil-rich, murderous, despotic kingdom that has, unsurprisingly, steadily been revealed to have funded the 9/11 attacks that slaughtered more than 3,000 Americans, well, good for them and shame on them.

But no free pass here.

The sense-defying, pandering, everyone-loses double-standard persists. Before our world went nuts, White Sox shortstop Tim Anderson would have been disqualified from appearing in a TV ad for Dairy Queen, a DQ by DQ.

After all, Anderson has been suspended three times, twice for exacerbating on-field hassles — one by bumping a peace-keeping umpire, the other for calling the opposing pitcher a “weak-ass f–king n—a!” — and another for giving the finger to the crowd in Cleveland.

But there he was last week, co-starring with Bryce Harper in a fresh new ad for DQ. Remember that the next time Anderson and his selective-memory supporters deal everyone the racist card, as if he’s a victim.

To think ballplayers once needed offseason jobs …

The Reds’ ommy Pham, the Giants’ Joc Pederson and the Angels’ Mike Trout are team owners in a $10,000 per season buy-in NFL fantasy league, one that recently led Pham to literally slap Pederson. Trout, the ostensible “commissioner,” says their league could use a law-and-order boss.

So could MLB and the NFL.

Continuing to advocate for more John Flaherty on YES’s Yankees telecasts, his easy-breezy, limited-stats, no-hype approach seems to make Michael Kay more relaxed. With Flaherty, Kay doesn’t search for talking points or force Q&As, as he does with David Cone and Paul O’Neill. The duo don’t chase the game, they let it come to us and them.

In his State of the NBA address and news conference last week, Adam Silver discussed changes to be made for All-Star balloting. But he said nothing about the increase in 3-point shots further destroying the NBA as logically intended, strategic, good-on-the-senses, all-in, movement basketball.

While we’re at it, other than being “a big name,” which I suppose is enough, I’ll never understand ESPN/ABC’s obsession with adding Magic Johnson. As an analyst, he has not been minimally enlightening.

By the way, the new NBA “game” of 3-point heaves would have minimized Johnson’s multiple and unstoppable inside and outside talents, forcing him to become either an indiscriminate bomber or a loiterer. We’d know him as Earvin.

Reader Steve Marcinak wonders how it works in California, whether justice is blind or peeks, now and then.

As Marcinak notes, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul, was given a sobriety test then arrested for DUI in California last week, having been involved in a two-car crash.

Yet Tiger Woods, who passed out at the wheel before rolling his car into a roadside ditch in California, was taken to the hospital, no drug or alcohol tests taken despite a previous bust for passing out at the wheel while driving on opioids. Fascinating.

My ESPN Stanley Cup MVP, thus far, is ex-Islander and Ranger Ray Ferraro. From his between-benches perch, he has not wasted any of his reports or our time. He has more than something to say, he has something to add, especially applicable, look-for-it stuff.

Wednesday on C-Span 3, an interesting lecture was heard on President Harry Truman’s World War II leadership following Franklin Roosevelt’s death. The speaker was a history professor at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College. His name? Gates Brown — not to be confused with the late, great pinch-hitter, 1963-75, for the Tigers.

Richie Rossiello, 48 years at The Post and a do-it-all deadline sports and news-side man, is packing it in this week. With a love of hockey in common, we met in the frantic “hot-type” days and lived to tell about it.