New Yankee Adam Ottavino, who will be the first player in franchise history to wear “0” on his uniform, said in December he would strike out the most famous No. 3 of all time.

On Friday, in his first public comments since signing a three-year, $27 million deal with the Yankees, the right-hander admitted he shouldn’t have brought up his potential dominance of Babe Ruth as a model of how the game had changed.

“Certainly, I probably used a bad example of the point I was trying to make about the evolution of pitching over baseball history,’’ Ottavino said during a conference call. “Babe Ruth is probably a name I shouldn’t have used in this example, but I caught a lot of flak for it.’’

No surprise there.

Last month on the MLB.com Statcast Podcast, Ottavino relayed a conversation he had with a coach in Triple-A about how Ruth would hit in today’s game.

“I said, ‘Babe Ruth, with that swing, swinging that bat, I got him hitting .140 with eight homers,’ ” Ottavino said on the podcast. “He was like, ‘Are you nuts? Babe Ruth would hit .370 with 60 homers,’ and I’m like, ‘I would strike Babe Ruth out every time.’ I’m not trying to disrespect him … but it was a different game. I mean, the guy ate hot dogs and drank beer and did whatever he did.”

Ottavino said Friday he was “surprised it went so viral.”

“I saw when they put the quote out of context out there why people would get so upset,’’ Ottavino said. “I meant no disrespect. I’m a huge baseball historian. I love the game. It’s not something that can be proven anyway, so I thought it was a little funny.”