In 2001, when I still collected autographs, and, in a way I didn’t fully understand, idolized ballplayers, I made my father wait for me outside a minor league baseball stadium on Coney Island for the team’s star player.

Once Angel Pagan finally left the clubhouse, a pack of kids managed to corner the not-yet-20-year-old. Playing for the Brooklyn Cyclones, he was years away, but one day, if things went right, he would end up with the New York Mets.

This is what concerned me as a teenager — the pitchers and the hitters and the numbers.

Seven years later, I was able to walk in through the same door the players used: the media entrance on the east side of Keyspan Park, situated just off Coney Island’s boardwalk. The press pass made the ballpark my oyster — the field, the clubhouse, the players — all accessible.

In the middle of this season, Pagan, a major leaguer at this point (but a middling one) was working his way back from an injury and was briefly assigned to the Cyclones.

After a night game, most of his teammates had cleared out for the night, but Pagan and just one other reporter remained. My assignment had nothing to do with him, and he was spending a long time in the batting cage, so I didn’t have a great reason to wait.

It wasn’t the parking lot, but there I was again, seeing if the guy would actually appear. He did, eventually, and sat at his locker. I pulled up a stool, introduced myself and asked him what it was like to be back. He answered and I left without mention of our first meeting, if it could be called that.

And that was all.

At 13, the autographed ball was a trophy. At 20, the interview was just another audio file I’d have to sort through later.

The myths I cared about most growing up — baseball and baseball players — aren’t myths anymore. All I’ve done the past two summers is sit in ballparks and talk to people who I used to think were more than just people. The mystery’s gone, and with it the luster of something I could never get enough of. Some things are best enjoyed from afar.