ST. PETERSBURG, FLA.—Even as they designated him for assignment last week, the Blue Jays made clear their intention to re-sign Josh Thole. The 29-year-old catcher was squeezed out by the re-acquisition of Dioner Navarro and he needed to clear waivers and then wait for rosters to expand before he could rejoin the Jays.

He was a free agent for about 36 hours.

“I was sorting through four deals with four other teams,” Thole deadpanned to the Star. “Nah, I’m just kidding.”

Thole knew he wasn’t going anywhere. As R.A. Dickey’s long-time personal catcher, his career has been inextricably linked to the 41-year-old knuckleballer, for better or worse. Nearly half his major-league starts behind the plate have been with Dickey on the mound, and Monday’s Labour Day matinee against the New York Yankees figures to be the 162nd game in which the two have worked together.

“I wasn’t happy about (getting released), by any means, but I understand the business,” Thole said this weekend. “I’ve been here all year and when I left we were in first place and that’s the motivation for coming back. It’s the guys in this room and the organization. To come so far and then to just abandon the ship, it’s not who I am. I’ve been in the fight with everybody and I wanted to continue it.”

For many Jays’ fans, the persistent presence of Thole and his .197 batting average since arriving in Toronto are just another reason to resent Dickey who, despite his durability and moderate success, has never lived up to the lofty expectations of his high-priced acquisition from the New York Mets — for which the Jays parted with hard-throwing phenom Noah Syndergaard — following his 2012 Cy Young award.

Dickey, for one, admits it is a “luxury” to work so closely with one catcher, but he says it’s not a necessity. “It’s something I’ve really enjoyed in my career with him because he is hands-down one of the best receivers with the pitch.”

Thole may be better than anyone at catching Dickey today, but he was not naturally given to the task.

“The first three or four I threw him in 2010 went off his mask,” Dickey recalled. “He struggled at the beginning just like everybody else, but where others have fallen down, he really kind of rose to the occasion in that he wanted to play catch every day, he wanted to learn about it.”

It all started back in spring training of 2010. Dickey had signed a minor-league deal with the Mets and Thole was the third catcher on the organization’s depth chart, destined for Triple-A.

Thole saw catching Dickey as his quickest path to the majors and increased playing time.

“They told me I was going to play every day in Buffalo” — coincidentally the Mets were then affiliated with the Bisons as the Jays are today — “so I didn’t want that to be a crutch, like, ‘Oh, I can’t catch him, so I’m not going to be able to play one day.’ I didn’t want that. I wanted to play every day.”

So Thole followed Dickey around all spring that year, getting more acquainted with the pitch every day.

All these years later, the two are still something of an odd pair. There’s a 12-year age gap, for starters. But they also have very different personalities. Thole is jocular and outgoing, while Dickey is more pensive. On the field, however, they clearly have a special bond.

“We’ve built a good thing over the last seven years, more than just a pitcher-catcher relationship,” Thole says. “We both trust each other a lot.”

Dickey was called up to the Mets in May 2010 and Thole followed the next month. With a few exceptions, they have worked together almost exclusively since. But a turning point came in early 2011, when Thole felt he was regressing in his handling of the pitch. Like Dickey, who often turned to past knuckleball practitioners for advice, Thole reached out to Doug Mirabelli, the former Red Sox backstop who caught Tim Wakefield, one of Dickey’s knuckleball forebears.

“I was struggling with it bad,” Thole said. “So I spoke with him about it and he gave me some pointers.”

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

Most of Thole’s expertise catching Dickey has come from repetition, but Mirabelli’s advice was invaluable. “Quite frankly I have to give Doug a lot of the credit because the things that he told me to do are the things that put me over the top.”

Thole did not want to go into specifics about what Mirabelli told him — “I can’t give away my secrets or I’ll never have a job,” he says, laughing — but a lot was about how he set up behind the plate. Mirabelli’s advice on the mental side, however, may have been more important.

“The best advice he gave me aside from the mechanics was ‘Just know that you’re going to lead the league in passed balls every year. That’s the nature of the beast.’ That helped a lot, because once you miss one you start getting tense, you start getting tight and then you miss the next one and the next one. But when you see it as part of the gig it’s easier to relax.”

Considering the opportunities it has afforded him, Thole can’t begrudge his connection to Dickey. After all, he might still be in the minors if not for developing the unique skill. But he also can’t help but wonder what might have otherwise become of his career.

“Who knows what would have happened?” he says.

Before he reached the majors, Thole was actually viewed as a bat-first catching prospect and was once regarded by Baseball America as the best hitter for average in the Mets’ minor-league system. His major-league stats have not kept pace. Whether that’s due to limited playing time or some other shortcoming is impossible to know.

But Thole does feel sometimes like a pigeonholed actor.

“That’s probably a good analogy because now I’m a knuckleball catcher.”

Thole’s and Dickey’s future beyond this season is unclear. They both face the possibility of being left off the post-season roster, while neither is expected to return to the Jays next year.

For now, Thole says he isn’t worried about his next gig or where his career might go when Dickey retires.

“We’re trying to win this thing,” he says. “My role is going to be to catch R.A. in his starts and whatever it is, it is.”

Read more about: