I went to Binghamton on Saturday with our video producer, Jeff. We t drove up during the day, interviewed a few players, watched the B-Mets score 11 runs thanks to a brutal Reading Phillies defense, ate dinner, crashed at a HoJo’s and headed home. Quick trip.

Anyway, the most exciting part, for me, was when we took a look at the R-Phils’ (they really do call ’em that) roster posted in the B-Mets’ dugout. There among the outfielders, born in 1975, listed at 5’9″: Timo Perez.

And sure enough, there, leaning up against the batting-practice cage, no taller than 5’7″, was the familiar face of baserunning blunders past.

I grew giddy.

“We gotta get him! Dude, we’ve got to talk to Timo Perez. This is incredible!”

I didn’t even stop to think about what Timo Perez was doing there. I figured I’d ask him about his time with the Mets, and the little-heralded Matt Ginter trade that took him away, and how he was working with younger players now as an experienced veteran in something closer to a coaching role, and how he had played baseball all around the world and played in the World Series with the Mets in 2000 and won one with the White Sox in 2005.

So after the Phillies finished BP I made my way through their dugout, over a bag of batting helmets and into their tiny clubhouse where Timo Perez sat typing into his cell phone.

“Hey Timo — I’m Ted; I’m from SNY, the Mets’ TV network — you got a minute for an interview?”

“No.”

And that was that. A couple of his teammates appeared incredulous; probably most members of the Double-A Reading Phillies don’t get many media requests to reject. But Timo Perez didn’t want to talk.

It’s his right, of course.

And you know what? What an a******* I am for getting caught up thinking it’s funny, a 35-year-old former Met out in cow country trying to play his way back to the big leagues. That’s Timo Perez’s life.

I can point to his age and his .690 Major League OPS and his .663 mark in Reading this year and draw a pretty clear conclusion about what’s happening to him. But that might not be as easy to do when you’ve been playing baseball professionally for your entire adulthood.

So Timo Perez doesn’t want to chat up some grinning jackass who appears entertained by the fact that he played in the World Series five years ago and now is backing up 22-year-olds. Who could blame him?

I don’t want to scoop the video interview I just did with Melvin Mora since it’ll come out sometime early next week and you can watch it then, but know that Melvin Mora is totally awesome and cool.

I’m probably biased because Mora was always one of my favorite Mets in his brief tenure with the team. I thought it was awesome when he randomly became one of the best hitters in the American League for a couple of years, and even kind of awesome when he hit that grand slam last night.

Anyway, Mora told me he cried when he found out the Mets traded him to the Orioles. And he talked about Edgardo Alfonzo’s role in getting him on the Mets’ roster, which was cool. Real good interview, I think — one of my favorites this year.

Also, while this was happening, Ubaldo Jimenez was signing autographs for some fans. Some reporters were in the dugout to interview him so he gave the “one sec” sign to the crowd.

While he was answering the reporters’ questions, he grabbed a bunch of brand-new, official Major League baseballs out of a bag and signed them. I figured he was autographing them for the interviewer or something (even though that’s a big-time media no-no around here), but after he finished the interview he went back to where he was standing and tossed all the balls out to the crowd.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a player do something like that before, and it’s particularly awesome that it should be a player who’s, well, particularly awesome. So that’s cool.

And furthermore, the Rockies were pumping Madonna in the clubhouse before the game, and I mean that in the most innocent sense of the term. First “La Isla Bonita,” then “Like a Prayer.” Pretty weird.