DUNEDIN—In a no-autograph zone — the clubhouse — R.A. Dickey is nevertheless approached for his John Hancock.

By a teammate and member of the pitching fraternity. Ryan Tepera, with a copy of the knuckleballer’s autobiography in hand. For his mother.

“Sure,” says Dickey, obligingly.

Just count the ways that this 41-year-old is in a bracket of his own, an entire orbit: Age, pitching style, cerebral nature. The old-style T-shirt with arm sleeves ripped off, the tube sock he often wears as a bandana.

Quirks.

He’s a quirky guy.

An interloper asks Dickey if he wouldn’t mind talking about something other than baseball for a change. “Please, yes.”

So the subject is, ahem, Donald Trump. Dickey hadn’t seen that flutter-ball coming.

“Oh gosh. All that I have is my opinion, of course.”

But he’s willing to deliver, to ponder the freaky populist appeal of the billionaire who’s zooming in on the Republican presidential nomination.

“I feel that people can sometimes get tired of the quote-unquote system,” Dickey observes. “When you have a wild-card that seems to say things that would go against the system, if he’s saying the right things regardless of whether they’re substantiated by fact or data, people can cling to that. We live in a culture that’s fascinated by things that are entertaining. And there’s an element of entertainment in him that people are drawn to.

“It’s just edgy enough for people not to dismiss it. It has just enough credibility for people not to say, ‘The guy’s a loon.’ ”

Dickey isn’t about to reveal his own political stripes. It’s obvious, however, he’s no Trump fan-boy.

“It’s almost like a Rob Ford situation,” he says, then expressing shock when informed the ex-Toronto mayor has passed away. “Regardless of what you think of him as a politician, that’s heartbreaking.”

The analogy is fitting, though.

“There was some of that same thing going on in Canada, in Toronto, that I was following a couple of years back. This is similar to that. A guy who is very unconventional. He doesn’t play by the rules. And if you’ve been engrossed in a system where people seem to play by rules and where change is slow, you can gravitate towards someone who seems a lot different. That’s what’s happen in America today.”

The Donald train, of course, keeps rolling along, picking up another 58 delegates in the Arizona primary on Tuesday.

“He plays on fear,” says Dickey. “If you catch only the headlines — which is what he goes for — then he’s certainly the headline candidate. I have yet to hear him lay out a policy other than some tax stuff. Mostly it’s, ‘I’m going to make America great again, trust me. Look at my businesses,’ this and that. But you don’t really see any substance.

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“I will say this about Trump. If he gets to the stage where he becomes legitimate — and right now I don’t know if he is or he isn’t — and he makes the right move by surrounding himself with people who have a lot of political savvy and know that game well, it will really help him. If he’s smart enough to know that he doesn’t have all the answers, like he pretends to, surrounds himself with people who know diplomacy and policy, then he can be very dangerous, as far as getting into power.”

For his part, Dickey gazes upon the political landscape and can only sigh. “I don’t know if we have an electable candidate on either side of the aisle. So that’s scary for me.”

Not even Hillary Clinton?

“She has not endeared herself to a lot of people.”

Okay, segue to baseball.

Here’s Dickey, with the meniscus junk in one knee cleaned up in off-season surgery, grunting through hours of work-out dedication after his on-field throwing labours are done, on the treadmill, on the weights, possibly in his best physical condition in years, having dropped the 12 pounds he gained last season.

This is his 14th major league spring training. While knuckleballers can have protracted careers, the years are winding down.

“I don’t know if precious is the word, because I’ve really tried to be in the moment in the latter part of my career. But I do feel more and more a sense of urgency to be prepared. I have to be more intentional if I want to stay in the game, being able to withstand the rigors of a 162-game season, 34 starts, 200 innings etcetera. I didn’t use to have to work at it so hard. Now I realize I have to work even harder just to be where I was when I was 35.”

Yet the Jays will need to lean heavily on Dickey to eat up innings, especially with Mark Buehrle having ridden off into the sunset (reportedly in a honking huge RV somewhere). Nobody in the starting rotation has matched Dickey’s durability — 200-plus innings for five years and counting.

“Only because I’ve done it before,” he notes. “But there was a time when I hadn’t done it before. That’s where a lot of these guys are and they’re right there, ready to do it. We are going to be a reliable bunch. Now, how that will manifest itself I can’t predict. If three of us get to 200 innings, it will be a remarkable year. If other guys have to be monitored, if you have to cut (Aaron) Sanchez or (Marcus) Stroman’s limit at 170, then I can take some of that burden.’’

Mark that with an “X.”

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