Sunday, in its most magnanimous act since it began in 1979, ESPN presented Howie Rose Appreciation Night.

It began when the first inning of the Mets-Phillies game ended with Corey Dickerson out at the plate trying to score from second on a single. That’s when smarm artist Matt Vasgersian explained, “The Mets were in their run-prevention defensive mode.” First I’ve heard of it. You?

For those who knew what was coming, that’s all she wrote. Time to try, at best, to watch the game while listening to Rose and Wayne Randazzo on WCBS radio.

For those stuck with ESPN, it was another Sunday night to consider why ESPN — the E is for excess — aspires to wreck all it touches, with the exception of Mike Breen-guided NBA telecasts.

In the seventh, after Mets starter Marcus Stroman was pulled with his team down 2-1, say-anything Jessica Mendoza returned us to never-never land: “It’s a good time for Marcus Stroman to come out of the game,” adding he had “a career high swings and misses — 18.”

What? Huh? Nurse! Stroman was so good that he had to go?

Phils starter Zach Eflin was pulled after seven innings, though he’d allowed only three hits on 84 pitches. Say-anything Alex Rodriguez seconded the decision. That’s right, if the car’s running great, trade it in!

Not that ESPN, with all its silly stats would know, but Eflin this season pitched the Phils’ first complete game in three seasons, a 107-pitch win, his third career complete game — a ton, these days, putting him right up there with Warren Spahn’s 382, 85 of them after age 40.

When the Mets tied it at two, Vasgersian could not allow that to speak for itself. He added, “We have a brand new narrative.” We don’t want a narrative! If we did, we’d watch reruns of “The Wonder Years!”

Vasgersian also noted the “unusual turnaround,” as both teams were scheduled to play day games the next day.

Unusual? The next day was Labor Day. Plus, day games following Sunday night games are caused by ESPN’s purchased authority from MLB.

And as if he had discovered the cure for otitis externa — swimmer’s ear — Rodriguez for a second straight week hammered his conviction that even-numbered leads are superior to odd-numbered leads. He has yet to explain why he’d prefer 2-0 to 3-0, or why he tried to hit solo HRs with even-numbered leads as opposed to doing the smart thing and striking out.

On Howie Rose Appreciation Night, he doubled down on a brand new narrative. I hope you missed it.

News flash: YES’s Flash gets it!

John Flaherty, as bright and alert as he is on YES, often leaves me with the sense he’s shackled to some code that prevents him from addressing what we see — and how he doesn’t get it, either.

Sunday, after Mike Mussina visited the booth, Flaherty said: “The one thing I always felt — and I played with Mike for three years — is that when he took the ball every fifth day you knew he was prepared by watching the work he put in between. You knew that he took it as his responsibility that he had to go deep into a game. … Obviously the game was different, then. But that was his responsibility: to get deep into every game.”

Sensible and professional, no? So why has that changed? Why is such a winning design now rare by design? Do diminished expectations make for diminished skills, diminished standards and a badly diminished sport? Why can’t that be cured?

Friday night in Mobile, Ala., 10 teens were wounded, five critically, during a shooting and perhaps a shootout at a high school football game. A 17-year-old, Deangelo Dejuan Parnell, was charged with nine counts of attempted murder.

So where is the outrage? Where are the activists? Where are Colin Kaepernick and the Nike marketing team to take a stand — or at least a knee?

ESPN’s evisceration of the U.S. Open was again met with fury — more fury than with surprise — from tennis fans.

Rather than feeding in and out of good, full-view matches, ESPN chose to chop the screen to show two or three at once, making none discernible to those with, at the maximum, two eyes.

Even when matches were in changeovers, ESPN kept the view divided, to herald its “Look what we can do!” lunacy. Reader Mike Duesler writes that he was grateful to see — barely — a fractionalized view of players sitting down.

The abandonment or unwarranted adornments of good matches to cut to interviews with celebrities were frequent, designed to please those least likely to be watching — those who don’t care.

A long chat with Dick Vitale? How was ESPN able to corral him?

Let’s storm the entrance to ESPN in Bristol! Someone in the stats department is being forced to work at knifepoint!

Why else, with Notre Dame and Louisville tied at 14-14 on Monday night, would ESPN post, “ND’s chance of winning out [finishing undefeated] is 2.8 percent.” Who calculated that, Archimedes or Archie Andrews?

Why else would ESPN’s “Get Up” ask Tuesday morning,“Who should be considered for the Heisman Trophy after Week 1?”

Unhand that wretched soul!

Yankees in real double trouble

Hello, Mr. Manfred! At Labor Day, the Yankees and Padres each had more home runs than doubles. No major league team has ever hit more HRs than doubles.

ESPN’s lead college football analyst, Kirk Herbstreit, has served early notice that we’ll need a Herbstreit-to-English dictionary. Does a receiver’s “catch radius” correspond to his “drop radius?” And how did they play football before players learned to “leverage” defenders?

The NFL Experience, continued: At newly opened East Coast sportsbooks, the sudden, unexpected news of quarterback Andrew Luck’s retirement created a feeding frenzy to bet the Colts at under 9½ wins before the number was lowered or removed.

Notre Dame-Louisville on Monday: The Louisville Cardinals, identified in ESPN graphics as the team in cardinal red, wore all black, making the dark red names on the players’ backs nearly impossible to read. Brilliant!

After all, were we supposed to believe Angels pitcher Tyler Skaggs, found dead in his hotel room at age 27, had died from natural causes? Not any more than found-dead-in-their-hotel-room Vince McMahon performers.

Don’t miss Monday’s Mike Francesa show when he replays his expert claim from late May that the Yankees’ Gio Urshela is not good enough “to be an everyday player on this team. He’s just not.”

It’s a shame the Mets’ Robinson Cano missed Players’ Weekend. Reader Bill Hoyt suggests Cano was going to wear his Russian Revolution nickname, “Trotsky.”

Phil Mushnick’s column returns Sept. 13.