The Column: The Yankees bring out the limits of my generosity

When Aaron Judge hit his 61st home run tying Roger Maris for the American League record, a friend — much younger, who isn’t? — with whom I have disagreed often over the years, asked if I thought it appropriate to root against a player merely because he was on another team.

“I would love to hear from you on this,” the fellow said via text message, presuming, I supposed, that I was busily stewing eye of newt and toe of frog to hex the slugging Yankee outfielder.

You caught the tone, I’m sure.

He would “love” to hear from me, the idea being that if I am such a huge exponent of fair play — evidently, this is the way I advertise myself — how can I do anything but set aside partisan passions and cheer such a significant achievement?

For perspective, I should mention that the friend, a former Long Islander now living in Chicago, is an ardent fan of the Yankees, which I may have gently suggested raises profound questions about character.

Having grown up in Brooklyn when the Bronx bigshots seemed indomitable and, until 1955, throttled our beloved Dodgers in World Series after World Series, and whose strutting sense of entitlement made things all the worse, I am emphatically for anyone else.

But this is not about the mighty Mr. Judge or Brooklyn or the Yankees or Dodgers or boyhood grievances, undiminished.

The text from Chicago got me thinking not so much about whom we root for in the rarefied world of professional sports but the demands of generosity in real life — of resisting, if only once in a while, the most devilish Deadly Sin of all — No. 4, Envy.

Not so easy.

“There is something curiously boring about someone else’s happiness,” said Aldous Huxley, author of “Brave New World,” a novel, you may remember, that deals with a warped society of genetic engineering, authoritarian rule and enslavement. Scant happiness in that mix, but, let’s admit, Hux was onto something.

Tell the truth, friends, are you thrilled when those chatty Christmas letters — could start arriving any day — announce someone else’s granddaughter is principal flutist with the philharmonic or grandson winner of a MacArthur genius grant?

Or that one or another extraordinary offspring is captain of the U.S. soccer team and her brother scheduled for the next lunar mission?

How delighted are you to learn the neighbor’s daughter made junior partner a year out of Harvard Law and his wife’s latest novel is soon to be a movie?

“Aargh,” I often remark.

“Oh,” says my wife, Wink, “did we get a card from the Baxters already?”

Accomplishment is aggravating enough but wealth, especially, irritates me. The worst, right?

Here’s a good test. Your cousin finally gets in touch. He won the lottery and just wanted to share the good news. “Great, couldn’t be happier, have a ball,” you say. And then? Do you rush to share Cuz’s glad tidings or announce you are skipping dinner and do not wish to be disturbed?

I am not often enough a model of magnanimity. If someone tells me his son is booked for outer space or wife on the verge of a Hollywood contract, or if he wants to show me his lucky Win for Life ticket, I may manage only a polite smile and hurried handshake.

As a kid, I was advised by parents to be grateful for what we have. At the Lutheran church, Pastor Jentsch reminded us covetousness was not the key to a happy life — now or, you know, later.

“We’re doing fine,” says Wink. “Bills paid and the kids are all right. What more can you ask?”

Well, I suppose a pennant for the Mets would be nice, but, based on the team’s October performance, that is an idle dream.

Otherwise, I know Pastor Jentsch was correct. Greed hath no beginning nor end — but, remember, there always is time to repent.

Accordingly, I am declaring to my dear, young — mid-50s — Chicago inquisitor that age and wisdom have prevailed.

Aaron Judge ended the season with a record-breaking 62 homers, and I am willing to say about the Yankee star what, Holy Gospel aside, I never will manage about his team: Hooray.