Bob Klapisch

Columnist, @BobKlap

Anyone who follows Noah Syndergaard on Twitter – and if you don't, you should; it’s a treasure of wit and humor – got a glimpse of Bartolo Colon working out recently in the Dominican Republic. Hold the jokes: The man is serious about his calorie-burn.

You wouldn’t think so, judging by that Michelin Man physique. Clearly, Colon isn’t just larger than life, he’s larger than his uniform. But there’s a reason why he’s called the Big Sexy; it has less to do with the flesh than the soul.

In his three years with the Mets, Colon’s vibe was as cool and untroubled as a 1940s-era jazz musician. No wonder teammates loved him. Big Sexy was intense on the mound but hip enough to never show up the hitters he embarrassed with the slowest fastball of his career (87.9 mph).

That’s one reason why Colon will be missed in 2017. When he signed a one-year, $12.5 million deal with the Braves, he took with him living proof that velocity doesn’t necessarily have to be king in a radar gun-obsessed industry. And getting outs isn’t always about ramming the accelerator through the floorboard.

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The Braves have several pitching prospects on the way, including Sean Newcomb and Aaron Blair. That's why they pursued not just Colon but R.A. Dickey over the winter. The veterans will act as the bridge to what Atlanta hopes will be a rebirth in 2018. Colon and Dickey have much in common. Besides being 40-somethings, both have succeeded in New York and both have won Cy Young Awards. The Braves can only get smarter in their presence.

Colon, in particular, inspires intense loyalty from inexperienced pitchers who look up to him. Syndergaard said last summer that despite the vast difference in their arsenals, not to mention how they use their fastballs, “I knew I could learn a lot from Bart just watching the way he worked between starts."

Colon saved his arm in the bullpen sessions; sometimes he’d skip them altogether. And he long ago gave up on the idea of finding an extra 2-3 mph, instead creating magic with his two-seam fastball. Applying pressure on his index finger, Colon would aim the ball 3-4 inches off the outside corner to a right-handed hitter before willing it over the plate. Colon was able to neutralize left-handed hitters with the same trajectory; aim for the batter’s front hip, then freeze him as the ball darted through the strike zone.

The formula was effective enough to propel Colon to 44 wins in three summers with the Mets.

“I can’t tell you how many times I watched Bart pitch, either in person or on TV and I’d think, 'That’s (Greg) Maddux all over again,'” Blue Jays manager John Gibbons said in 2016. “You could see the expression on hitters' faces, like, “What the (bleep) was that?” He just kept finding a way to get you out.”

Colon wasn’t just intuitive on the mound; he was savvy enough to know his time in New York was over, and not just because Matt Harvey, Steven Matz and Jacob deGrom were all returning from injuries. When Seth Lugo and Robert Gsellman also ascended rapidly, Colon rightfully calculated there was no room for him in 2017.

“I guarantee you Bart’s gone next year,” one team official said in September. Colon was, at the time, huddled with a group of young Latin players, laughing heartily at a joke someone had told. The official nodded in the direction of the scrum. “Look at them. I guarantee you there isn’t one player who won’t miss him.”

Indeed, in that Twitter post of Colon working out, Syndergaard wrote: “How can something make you so happy yet so sad at the same time?”

There are two unforgettable moments in Colon’s time in Flushing. The first was that home run blasted just two weeks shy of his 43rd birthday – the oldest player to hit his first HR. There was something beautiful and innocent and utterly unembarrassed about the way Colon swung a bat. He didn’t care what he looked like; he wasn’t wired for self-consciousness.

Indeed Colon struck out in 40 of his 65 at-bats last year and was overmatched most of the time. Yet, he stopped the world when he took James Shields over the wall on May 8. As comedian Jimmy Fallon would later say on "The Tonight Show": “You could tell it was (Colon’s) first home run because at each base, he stopped and asked for directions to the next one."

And then there was the legendary behind-the-back flip to first base in 2015 – a move so graceful it must’ve been borrowed from Nureyev. No pitcher could improvise like that without athletic genes. Colon, heavy as he is, was an advertisement for flexibility and range of motion in an era that overvalues muscles.

One more thing: Colon was a softy at heart. To this day, there are members of the baseball community who believed he grooved an 84-mph fastball to the Marlins’ Dee Gordon in the first game, first at-bat following Jose Fernandez’s tragic death.

In tribute to his teammate, Gordon stood in the right-handed batter’s box, watched one pitch, then switched to his natural left side. He connected in thunderous fashion, a moment so spiritual he wept openly as he circled the bases. Gordon and the rest of the Marlins proceeded to lose it altogether in the dugout. They went on to a 7-3 blowout. As one member of the Mets organization said, “We felt sorry for them. We felt guilty trying to beat them.”

But what about the meatball Colon served up? Terry Collins was troubled by the drop-off in velocity. So was pitching coach Dan Warthen. They summoned Colon to the manager’s office to ask if anything was wrong. Colon shook his head, and said he was simply overcome by the grief in the ballpark.

The matter was dropped, the Mets moved on and ultimately so has Colon to a club that needs him. But don’t think the Mets will ever forget Big Sexy. How can they? June 9 is Bartolo’s Bobble Head Day in Atlanta.

The visitors? The Mets.

A coincidence? Come on.