Rickey Henderson was back at Shea Stadium yesterday, not to play for the Mets but to say goodbye to them. Baseball’s all-time stolen base king was given his unconditional release Saturday, but in his version he was given his “freedom,” and he returned to the ballpark yesterday only to bid his former teammates good luck and farewell.

“I really don’t understand it, so there can’t be any regrets. They just gave me my freedom. That’s probably the best thing that happened,” said Henderson, who showed up at Shea wearing a blue Nike sweatsuit. “It just didn’t work out here. I don’t know that I didn’t do the job. Maybe I said something wrong, or maybe y’all wrote something wrong. One or the other.”

Henderson didn’t say whether he thought a .219 average with two RBIs can be qualified as doing the job. Henderson did a number of things right in his Met tenure (very few of them this year), but he certainly did and said enough wrong to be shown the door.

Among the things he did wrong were his well-publicized card game with Bobby Bonilla during last year’s NLCS, a general lack of hustle in the field and at least twice breaking into home run trots on balls that didn’t leave the yard. Among the things he said wrong were insisting he didn’t regret going into those trots, that he would do it again, constantly complaining about his contract, and telling a Post reporter the only reason he didn’t beat him up was because he had “respect” for people.

Henderson was coy about his future baseball plans. When asked if he had a preference for playing in the American or National League, he said, “I might want to come back here to Shea,” but other than that, gave no clue as to where he’d play.

“I’m headed fishing. Then when the time’s up, wherever I go, the media’ll be there, they’ll write about it, and you’ll know. It’s all good,” Henderson said. “I just came here to enjoy my great teammates, wish them well, hope everybody can break this funk. They’ll look for me on ESPN; you know I’ll be on the highlights. Maybe that ball I didn’t get out will get out. Then I can stay in the trot.”

Henderson kept a set of Met hats to put on his wall “to show who I played for.” Then he bid adieu to New York for a second time.

“It’s been a pleasure,” Henderson said. “New York is always a great experience. They say I’m always a good story or a bad story, and I sell y’all’s papers.”