FLUSHING, N.Y.—Driving to the ball park, this ball park, R.A. Dickey’s mind drifted back to a memory bank of riches.

“Same route that I would take when I was a player here, so it was pretty nostalgic coming in.”

He lingered fondly on that earlier Dickey, of not so distant Mets yore, who matched a career-high 13 strikeouts for his 20th win of that season, Sept. 28, 2012. That’s when the Cy Young talk really started to swirl, and of course he did win it that year.

“Actually, the last game that I ever pitched here,’’ the knuckleballer was reminiscing Monday afternoon. “So it was pretty neat to come back in the same way. But at the same time, you have to hold both — what once was and what is now. Now that I’m here it’s time to win ball games, and all that.”

Alas, and darn, Dickey won’t be winning or losing or no-decisioning at Citi Field. The starting rotation sequence does not align for these brace of games in Queens. Pity, because it would have been delicious to watch him go head-to-head against mound behemoth Noah Syndergaard Monday night — the primary bright shiny prospect Toronto sent the Mets to get Dickey in late December, 2012. “I thought it would be neat to pitch against Syndergaard,” he said, grinning at reporters. “I thought that would make for a good story.”

And Dickey — author, raconteur — knows how to tell a story.

So it was a poignant conversation as he stopped in the bowels of the ball park, still dragging along his roller suitcase, for a look back and a look forward.

The core theme: No regrets.

Recall that Dickey, a huge get for GM Alex Anthopoulos in that winter, when it seemed like Dickey hung the moon, such was the fan rapture over his trade-and-sign acquisition. Although he did say, at his introductory press conference, not to expect another Cy Young because that lightning rarely strikes twice. But he wanted to come north, following a magical season with the Mets. Remembering a sports section headline — clearly it still stings because he brought it up against yesterday — that smirked at then-GM Omar Minaya for signing Dickey to a minor-league contract in 2010 (and he was the first player cut from the major-league training camp that spring). “I’ll never forget reading that headline — that Minaya had picked up a player off the junk heap. That always resonated with me. To look back at that, coming from the junk heap to now, it’s certainly something that I’ve enjoyed, that part of the story.”

This is where Dickey, a minor-leaguer for parts of 14 straight seasons and a knuckleballer by last chance, rose from the ashes after so many years of baseball on the edges. And yet he left Flushing behind.

“I really thought it was the right time. I chose to be a Blue Jay.”

Not repining any of it, if displeased with how his 2015 season has unfolded, though the numbers are starting to straighten out some.

“I don’t think that I have a single regret, really. I felt like it was the right move, for me. I felt like I was ready to test my pitch in the American League. I wasn’t afraid to do that. And I’m still in the middle of my journey. Ask me in a year, maybe I will have regrets, hopefully not. Right now I think we’re poised to do something special for the city of Toronto. So it’s hard to answer that question in earnest.”

Nothing remotely wrong, though, admitting that this city, this park, retains a special place in the heart.

“It was a place where I was able to really redeem my career.”

There are friends everywhere, from the Mets trainer to the cook’s mom, so lots of hellos and how-are-ya’s? Because Dickey is, verbally, with that barley water Tennessee drawl, a touchy-feely sort.

But, see here, let’s rewind the tape to that whole regrets — don’t have any — part of the discussion . . . and ask me again in a year. Would that be contingent on whether the Jays find their way back to the post-season, finally?

“Well yeah. And the regret wouldn’t be that I chose to come here. The regret would be that I didn’t perform better while I was here, that I couldn’t or didn’t do more to help us. My experience as a Blue Jay, I think that the anticipation and expectation for myself and probably for the fans’ point of view was, why didn’t this guy win another Cy Young? That’s why we got him. Which I completely understand. Mentally, it’s been a hard thing to wade into and walk with through three years. Because you never want to be a disappointment. So you’ve got to keep convincing yourself that you’re having good years and putting up numbers that are respectable in the AL East, and realize that there’s a little bit more grace probably in the AL than there is in the NL.

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“That’s really the toughest thing for me. You want to be worth it. You want to be worth the trade. You want to be worth the expectation. That’s just the nature of the beast.”

At 40, Dickey does occasionally glance back over his shoulder — especially on a day like today, heavy with sepia tones — and wonder, fretfully, why the gold medal standard of 2012, even the two seasons prior to that, hasn’t been duplicated.

“When you have years like that, you’re constantly wondering why you’re not having those same years with your new team. There’s always that record that’s playing and, man, what’s going on? Why aren’t you the same pitcher? Why aren’t you having the same result?”

Can Dickey possibly not grasp that’s what all athletes ask themselves, as the years go by?

“You’re constantly trying to unpack the reasons that you’re not, right? I feel disappointed that up until this point I haven’t performed better this year. The last two years, not so much. I feel like I put up pretty serviceable numbers but I want to be better.”

Two-hundred plus innings the last two seasons, 14 wins a year, is not disappointing. But it’s not imperious. And that drains some of the essence of pleasure from playing ball.

“I haven’t been able to get out of my own way, in a lot of ways, because I wanted to emulate that 2012 year for the fans in Toronto and for my team and organization. So, some of that disappointment creeps in and steals that joy away.”

Still, Dickey’s been smiling enough as a spectator to the team’s offensive pyrotechnics.

“It’s been awesome. So fun. It really puts everything in perspective.

“At the same time, you don’t want to take the bait. What I mean by that is, we also had an 11-game win streak in ’13, and where did we finish? Last.

“We have enough guys who were on that team, who experienced that, to not take it for granted and know that you’ve got to bring your game every game. You can’t just show up and win in this league.”

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