PEORIA, Ariz. — An anxious eagerness to get through the first of what will be many daily morning media sessions in spring training was evident in Dan Wilson.

After a busy offseason that flew by faster than expected, due largely to responsibilities of his new job as Mariners manager, Wilson was nervously excited for Thursday’s first official workout of 2025 spring training.

Wait, Wilson, who had participated in 16 MLB spring trainings as a player and more than that as a coach in the M’s farm system, was nervous for the first day?

“You know that stuff never goes away,” he said. “I remember as a young player, I asked Tim Belcher in Cincinnati about it. I said, ‘When do the butterflies go away?’ He said, ‘Never. And when they do go away, it’s time to get out of the game.’ He was right. You never don’t have butterflies, even from this role, from this vantage point. Everybody here has butterflies, but it’s the good kind.”

Well, it is a new role for him. And that inexperience was evident as he exited the media session for a team meeting, asking earnestly, “Wait, do I have to do this again this afternoon?”

No, that doesn’t happen until Cactus League games begin next Friday.

Wilson was unexpectedly thrust into his new role with 34 games remaining in the 2024 season after manager Scott Servais was fired.

With essentially six weeks remaining in the season and the team still trying to fight its way into the postseason, Wilson didn’t try to make major changes or dramatically shift how the team did things. He tried to implement some necessary changes, but really just tried to manage everything that accompanied a job he had never done.

“I keep telling people that the image of drinking through a fire hose is what it was like in September,” he said. “There was a lot coming at you at a quick rate.”