Megdal: Mets ace R.A. Dickey explains his unmiraculous success

Greatest bin find since Knuckles O’Toole!

Still, after spending a decade and a half bouncing around the minor leagues, he’s in a particularly good position to appreciate what he’s got going at the moment.

“I do feel like as I have gotten older, and grasped a better understanding of what is important, it has made this experience very rich,” Dickey said. “On reflection, I don’t think I would have had the equipment, or possessed what it took, to enjoy the experience this deeply. It gives you real empathy for what it takes to get here, and I don’t take that lightly.”

Another function of his age, maybe, is that he’s remarkably self-aware, and frank, about the reasons for his success. One of them is simply that he’s figured out a way to play the game that’s not too hard on his body.

“I recover very quickly, because as a knuckleballer, I don’t operate at 100 percent capacity,” Dickey said. “So it allows me to work on my craft a little bit more, because it doesn’t take as much of a toll on my arm.”