HOUSTON — When did the clock start?
Was it growing up in Corunna, Ontario, a small town near the United States border?
Rob Thomson’s brothers, Rick and Tom — a decade-plus older — played on the team that kept representing the province in the national baseball tournament. Little Rob served as the batboy and, even then, couldn’t take his eyes off the manager and coaches. What were they doing and why?
Or did the hours and days of baseball filling up Thomson’s mind not truly begin until he arrived at St. Clair Community College, across the border in Michigan?
He played there for Dick Groch in 1982-83 and the coach noticed something about the catcher, who soon transfered to the University of Kansas and played on the 1984 Canadian Olympic baseball team at Dodger Stadium.
Or did Thomson’s baseball brain not really blossom until he turned pro?
The Tigers won the World Series in 1984 and so they had the last pick in each round of the June 1985 draft. Thomson went in the 32nd round, the 795th pick. Ten rounds earlier, Detroit had taken a talented Lansing, Mich., kid everyone assumed was going to Michigan State, but opted for the Tigers’ bonus instead.
John Smoltz, that 22nd-round pick in 1985, doesn’t remember a brief encounter with Thomson in the Florida State League, but Thomson recalls every detail from the lone time he caught the future Hall of Famer as if he were reciting his 2022 World Series Game 2 lineup. Thomson called for a pitchout against the Osceola Astros, whiffed on the ball and allowed the only run to score in a 1-0 loss. Thomson, self-mocking and good-natured, laughs telling the story, but also still cringes nearly four decades later that he missed the pitch.
By 1987, still in the Florida State League (the highest level to which he rose as a player), Thomson recognized where his future was and his teammates did too.
“You could just tell how much he loved baseball,” said Torey Lovullo, a 1987 Single-A teammate. “As the backup catcher, he connected so many different dots in so many ways. Even then, he was very organized in his thoughts.”
Or did the 10,000-plus hours of accumulating details big and small about the game not really come until the alternative is truly dead?
Thomson blew out his elbow and was limited to two Lakeland games in 1987. He served as a player-coach. The Tigers saw what everyone eventually did: the affability, the work ethic and the passion. In 1989, at age 25, Thomson was hired to be Chris Chambliss’ only full-time coach on the Double-A London Tigers. The job paid $6,000. His wife, Michele, whom he had met while playing semi-pro ball in Ontario, was making more as a waitress.
“He was very young, but very mature,” Chambliss said. “A really dedicated young man. Back then in the minors, there weren’t a lot of coaches and so you had to wear a lot of hats. And you didn’t have to tell [Thomson] to do something. He was a very, very hard worker. Very dedicated. So I’m not surprised what he has become.”
Or to gather all you need, must you leave the only organization you have ever known and see how others instruct, organize and lead?
The Eastern League, after the 1989 season, organized a tour to try to spread the gospel of baseball in what was then the Soviet Union. Thomson volunteered as a coach for a barnstorming trip that began in Kiev and ended in Moscow. The Yankees sent a contingent that included a newly hired scout who worked the Michigan area and soon made the find of a lifetime in Derek Jeter.
The scout was Groch, who had never stopped admiring his former player, Thomson. He made a recommendation to George Bradley, who was running the Yankees’ minor leagues. Thomson was hired in 1990 to be the Single-A Fort Lauderdale third base coach. And for 28 seasons, Thomson worked his way up the Yankees’ ladder, tapping into major league managers Buck Showalter, Joe Torre and Joe Girardi, among many others.
His work ethic was legendary — you couldn’t beat him to the ballpark. Get there at 7 a.m., Thomson was there. Same at 6, 5 … His attention to detail was spectacular. Both qualities endeared him to the demanding Yankees owner George Steinbrenner. Torre dubbed Thomson “Topper” because he was on top of everything while running major league spring training with military precision.
“I first saw him when I was managing in the Eastern League [in 1989 for the Albany-Colonie Yankees] and he was on Chris Chambliss’ staff,” Showalter said. “I remember when his name came up endorsing it. He is the type that does not get caught up in political footballs. He doesn’t get caught up in sides. Those are the types who survive because they are never on the [bleeping] fence waiting to see how it turns out. He is only about the betterment of the organization.”
Or do you actually have to manage to learn how to manage?
Thomson only had two regular managing gigs before the 2022 season. In the 1994-95 offseason, he managed the Canberra Bushrangers of the Australian Baseball League, which bled into managing the Oneonta Yankees of the New York Penn League in 1995.
“I was a 20th-round pick and he treated me like the first-round pick Shea Morenz,” Mike Lowell said. “He had a dry sense of humor and connected with everyone and insisted we all follow the Yankee Way of doing things.”
Or do you have to leave the place you love because you can get typecast as just a lieutenant or just a Yankee?
Thomson had interviewed after the 2010 season to manage his home country Blue Jays. And when Girardi was dismissed by the Yankees after the 2017 ALCS, Thomson, his bench coach, was the first interview. Thomson told general manager Brian Cashman at the time that if he didn’t get the job, he still viewed himself as a Yankee and wanted to stay.
Multiple teams reached out to inquire about Thomson being their bench coach. He told them he was waiting on the Yankees. But the Yankees got a late start by going to ALCS Game 7. Thomson began to worry that the Yankees would hire someone else, then not keep him. Matt Klentak, then the Phillies GM, had hired a first-time, new-wave manager in Gabe Kapler and felt he needed a steady, veteran bench coach. Klentak said he was overwhelmed in the quantity and fervor for those recommending Thomson, to the extent that he promised to hire Thomson and tear up the contract if he got the Yankees’ job.
Cashman hired Aaron Boone and he said he intended to retain Thomson in some form. But the kind of steady, seen-it-all hand who might have helped Boone’s managerial transition was gone. Thomson took the job in Philadelphia. So he was there when Girardi replaced Kapler as manager. And he was there at 21-29 this year when the Phillies decided Girardi had to go. And Dave Dombrowski, running baseball operations, had a feeling about the guy who at 58 had determined this was his lot — aide, but not general.
And now Thomson — with experiences from bat boy in Ontario; to envoy in Russia; to manager in Australia; to Tigers to Yankees to Phillies; to coach, minor league skipper and executive; to Showalter to Torre to Girardi — is managing the Phillies in the World Series. He has had 10,000-plus hours of seeing it all and doing it all. Why is anyone surprised that he is orchestrating so well this October, connecting to his players and understanding how to manipulate a postseason bullpen?
After all, Rob Thomson has spent a baseball life preparing for his World Series moment.
