LOS ANGELES — With a towel over his shoulder and beer in his full head of hair, Rob Thomson reflected on an unexpected journey that has changed his life.
The 62-year-old Phillies manager was thrown into the fire in June 2022, tasked with turning around a struggling franchise buried in the pressure that comes with an 11-year postseason drought. He began the year content with retiring at the end of it.
A former minor league catcher in the Detroit Tigers system, Thomson has lived a proper baseball life. In the same stadium where his club clinched a second straight division title on Monday night, Thomson represented Canada as a 21-year-old in the 1984 Summer Olympics.