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Dan Wilson sees past and future in Ben Davis

For years the lockers next to Dan Wilson here were occupied by John Marzano and Tom Lampkin, and all was orderly in the Mariner Nation. Those old pros were obvious wingmen for Wilson, who over eight years has become a fixture at catcher on the ballclub and, with wife Annie and a growing family, in the community. But this spring has brought a change. The locker next door now belongs to Ben Davis, acquired from San Diego in a six-player trade in December. And so too, it seems, does the future. "It can be tough to see the future," Wilson said, headed out for early hitting one morning last week. "I'm not going to lie and say it's easy to swallow. But you have a choice in it, you can make it good or make it horrible, depending on your attitude. I chose to make it good." Lou Piniella said Wilson is the No. 1 catcher. But that slotting cannot be infinite. "Danny is our primary receiver," the manager said. "We like what we see of Davis and when you get a chance to acquire a young player of his potential at a critical position like catching, you make the move. "If everything works out it's fair to say you're looking at our catcher of the future in Davis. But right now Danny is our primary guy behind the plate and with Davis coming along, Danny is a real good guy for him to learn from." There is a poignancy to this. It is as if overnight Seattle's Danny Boy has turned old pro himself. We still tend to see Wilson as the kid-next-door type with the All-American smile and sweetness and earnestness. Yet baseball's cycle of life is ever turning, as once its turn brought Wilson to the Mariners, where Dave Valle had a seven-year stretch as No. 1 catcher. When a Cincinnati scout followed the Seattle club much of the last month of the 1993 season, Piniella, who knew the Reds from managing them for the three previous seasons, said, "If we do make a trade with the Reds, we'll be getting a young catcher named Dan Wilson." And so he came, that winter, Wilson and Bobby Ayala for Erik Hanson and Bret Boone. But Valle left simultaneously as a free agent, so while there was turnover behind the plate, there was no rubbing elbows with Valle as Davis does with Wilson. In this proximity, Wilson shares much with the young catcher who will be 25 in two weeks as Wilson turns 33 in four. "I think this is ... how do I say it ... a passing on of the game, sharing the experience, the knowledge," the veteran receiver explained. "I was fortunate to work with Joe Oliver, who shared so much with me although I was the young catcher coming along behind him in Cincinnati. Joe worked with me, not so much on the physical side of the game, but the mental part. "Other guys did it for me and I'm trying to do that with Ben. I'm not saying I have all the answers. But this is the way it is, and I guess always has been." The passage of the years in the game as in life is often not so much something you feel yourself, until you realize one day that your parents or brothers and sisters look older. Then it hits. "It hits me when I look around the clubhouse, and so many faces have changed," Wilson said. "Edgar (Martinez) and I are the only ones left from 1995. Jay (Buhner) is now a coach. "And when you go over the hitters on other clubs, some of the names aren't familiar. Others I recognize as young phenoms I've read about. Time is passing." Having pushed Oliver and replaced Valle, Wilson knows the emergence of younger players is natural. If nothing else, competition promotes competitiveness and kills complacency. "There's no comfort level with this game," Wilson said He said he always thinks of a Piniella line he read: "To play well you have to feel comfortable with feeling uncomfortable." This is not to say there is discomfort in the relationship for either Wilson or Davis. "I can see already why Danny's a great catcher," Davis said. "He works really well with the pitchers and they look up to him and listen to him. Any criticism he has is always positive." The younger backstop has his own perspective on his situation with Seattle. "I hope they see me as the future," he said. "But remember I caught 138 games last year for the Padres. So while this is a good opportunity for me, it's not so much in terms of playing time." But it is a step ahead for someone who sees Seattle as a more competitive team than San Diego. "You want to win, and coming here means I'm part of that," Davis said. "San Diego will be good in a few years, but I look around this club and I see guys like Freddy (Garcia) and Jamie (Moyer) and experienced guys who've won. But it's not just the vets, we have kids like (Joel) Pineiro and (Ryan) Franklin. This is a solid club." While Wilson acknowledges that he sees the future in Davis, he also sees "specifically right now, a lot of great tools, catching ability and a great arm, and power. Ben even has some speed. He's the Ichiro of catchers. I guess I have to see him in a game to make that final call; I can't tell yet how he'll do there." Meantime, Wilson solidified his status as the lead catcher with a good 2001 season, hitting .265 and throwing out 18 of only 46 would-be base stealers. Other clubs prefer not to run on Wilson, who has thrown out close to 40 percent of runners the past two years. So why, with 1999 first-round pick Ryan Christianson developing at Class A, did Seattle trade for Davis? In addition to seeing Christianson years away, only 22 and in Class A, there was no one the Mariners had to replace Wilson if he went down hard. "We liked Lampkin fine as a backup guy," Piniella said. "But heaven forbid if something happened to Danny we'd have needed to get someone else to play that many games. With Davis, it's real nice for us now." If not as nice for Wilson, who reads and handles the situation gracefully and realistically. "Nothing has changed for me, yet everything has changed," he said. "It's a dichotomy. As soon as you see the Mariners have acquired Ben Davis you know something has changed, yet you don't know just how much. I guess that's what we'll find out."

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