Yes, there is so crying in baseball.

This may actually be the sappiest, most sentimental sport in the world, awash in nostalgia for itself. But sometimes the tears are sincere.

Cito Gaston wiped away a few at the ballpark Wednesday night.

Final home game in the dugout for the Toronto Blue Jays manager, last hurrah and huzzah, as classy and laconic in poignant farewell as in Texas-drawlin’ hello.

Still drops his Gs too, all these years on as ersatz Canadian, two decades of T.O. summers since those first hittin’ instructor seasons. Twice gone before, and not happily, but content this time — no bitterness, all sweet.

“It’s not too often you get a chance to go out this way,” the lookin’-good 66-year-old observed before the celebratory hoopla, before the standing ovation, before the trot down memory lane. “Usually, it’s don’t let the door hit you on the butt on the way out.’’

Got bum-spanked a couple of times in the Blue Jay uniform: canned four days before the end of the ’97 season as skipper; “let go’’ as hitting coach redux in 2001.

Bowing out this time as manager-times-two with a World Series ring times-two, helmin’ a club that has performed better than expected, with some lights-out home run awesomeness, and optimism burgeoning for next year — though it’s for too long been all about next year.

There will be a next year for Gaston also, four next years, as per his special advisor contract, a nice sinecure. But Gaston did hint that he’ll likely be more preoccupied with improving his golf handicap than offerin’ avuncular advice to a successor-to-be-named-later.

Thank you Cito Night was a time capsule, Gaston flanked by some of his most memorable “boys’’ from seasons past: Joe Carter, George Bell, Devon White, Pat Hentgen. Plus many more tipping their hat via video salutes, a This Is Your Life tribute that put Gaston’s long career in perspective; this is a man who roomed with Hank Aaron, for goodness sake, signed his first contract with the Milwaukee Braves, was subjected to pride-burning racism in the old Carolina League, yet became the first black manager to win a World Series and, later, recipient of the “Mister’’ (as he puts it) Jackie Robinson Award for career achievement.

Gaston arrived at the park just after 1 p.m. Wednesday and was kept mercifully busy all day with well-wisher phone calls, holdin’ emotionalism at bay. It’s how he hoped to get through the on-field encomiums, dry-eyed and stoic. “I’m cool,” he claimed in a late afternoon media scrum. “I thought that I’d just come to the ballpark and just be Cito and try to stay as calm as I could.’’

Indeed, a long cool glass of water, but deeply moved in the spotlight, turned out, eyes damp as he juggled burnished reminiscences and baseball present — those guys clapping from the bench and spitting sunflower seeds. In another era, they all would have spat tobacco.

He’s been the surrogate father to so many Jays over the years and nearly all had a high regard for him, which is probably what will count most, lookin’ back. Respect has always been Gaston’s personal currency. “I don’t take anything personally,” he told reporters, of the occasional slings and barbs. But he did, he always did.

It’s been a bit like attending one’s own memorial, if not funeral, in recent weeks, what with the endless eulogies. “It’s not like I’m dead,’’ he joked.

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In old-school journalism, we end stories with -30-.

To honour Gaston — and here’s lookin’ at you Cito — let’s make it his jersey-number -43-.