R.A. Dickey had a strange feeling come over him when Mets general manager Sandy Alderson called him over the weekend to say that the reigning Cy Young winner had 72 hours to negotiate a contract extension with the Blue Jays.

"OK, here we go. I probably am never going to be a Met again," Dickey remembered thinking. "I think I had a wash of just numbness come over me, really."

A day after he was traded to Toronto and finalized a $30 million, three-year contract with the Blue Jays, the knuckleballer talked about his exit from New York after three seasons that revived his career.

"I think it's important for me to grieve leaving New York," he said. "I had a proverbial home there. I had a home among fans. I had a home in an organization. I had a lot of success there, and I think it's important for me to be sad about that for a moment before I move on to the next feeling."