Tom Gamboa, the Brooklyn Cyclones’ 68-year-old manager, knelt on the first base line with a bat in his hands, while his bench coach, Mets legend Edgardo Alfonzo, slapped ground balls to the team’s infielders.

“Atta-boy Darryl!” Gamboa chirped at Darryl Knight, a natural catcher who is learning to play first base to find his way into the lineup more often. “Get that glove down. That’s good, very good.”

A little while later, Gamboa took Ali Sanchez, a 19-year-old Venezuelan, aside and spoke to him in basic Spanish about his plans for him, which include being the team’s starting catcher.

Teaching is part of the job at the short season level, and it’s what brought Gamboa out of retirement in 2014, and it’s what keeps him coming back.

“I was born to teach,” he said when speaking to the media for the first time this season on Wednesday. “I’m an extrovert. I’ve always studied the game since I was in Little League. I’ve always paid attention to detail.”

Gamboa and the Cyclones will open their 2016 campaign on Friday, when they host the Staten Island Yankees. It begins a season that looks to be an immense improvement over last year’s team, a squad that hit .220 with the fewest runs scored in the New York-Penn League.

The team sends right-hander Gabriel Llanes to the mound for Friday’s tilt. The 20-year-old Californian went 4-1 with a 3.60 ERA in 11 games between the Kingsport and GCL Mets.

“I’m big on attacking the zone,” Llanes said Wednesday. “Not walking a lot of people, just keeping everybody in the game.”

Llanes is also eager to flaunt his changeup, a pitch he developed in Extended Spring Training this year, as well as his slider.

“I love my slider. I throw it in any count, anywhere.”

Gamboa felt confident in his decision to name Llanes as his Opening Day starter. The 2014 15th round pick impressed during Spring Training.

“Gabriel has been with us, this is his third year, and he’s the type of guy that if he’s on, we’ll have a real good game, but it’s all dictated by his control,” Gamboa said. “His stuff is certainly good enough to pitch at this level, but his problem in Florida was not so much throwing strikes, but the quality of strikes within the strike zone. It’ll be Bill Bryk’s job, our pitching coach, to get Llanes to use his height and establish a downhill plane.”

Llanes heads a Cyclones rotation that will feature both Merandy Gonzalez and Harol Gonzalez, as well as southpaw Joel Huertas, and Raul Jacobson.

Another challenge for Gamboa, in addition to teaching the experienced players, is getting the 2016 draft picks acclimated to professional baseball. The Cyclones’ preliminary roster features eight players who were drafted by the Mets less than a week ago. Part of the process is letting players from last year’s team ease the new guys into the game.

“Well first you’ve got to let them relax and blend in, and you hope the returnees can help them do that. We had a meeting yesterday, I told the guys coming up from Florida, remember when you first signed, so instead of a new draftee coming up and saying hello to you, you make the first move, introduce yourself, put your arms around them. The sooner we can make them feel like family, the sooner that they’ll blend in.”

Gamboa, sitting on the dugout bench while surrounded by media, looked out across the field at MCU Park, and reflected on his 40-plus years in professional baseball.

“I’m 68 now, but being around young people in the clubhouse, the humor, I still love it. I’m certainly getting to the very twilight of the career now. There’s other things I want to do, but I’m going to enjoy each and every day out here for sure.”

And that’s all it takes for a winning ballclub. Enjoy it. Each and every day.

Here is the preliminary Cyclones roster and a key injury to note is that of Desmond Lindsay who will be out until mid-July with a hamstring injury.