There’s crying in baseball. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
Ten minutes after the season ended, Rob Thomson’s eyes told the whole story — red, glassy, and unwilling to hide what his heart already knew. He waded through hugs and handshakes and a tunnel of shell-shocked faces, trying to find his way to the interview room while the Dodgers sprayed champagne on the other side of a thin wall. The thump of bass from their clubhouse made the Phillies’ hallway feel even quieter.
And that’s how it goes, right? One club pops corks, the other packs boxes. But this one hit different — because it’s starting to feel like we’ve read this chapter before.
Four trips to October under Thomson. Four good teams. One pennant. Zero parades.
So here we are again, standing in the echo of another thud.
They were really good — 96 wins, another division flag, a roster that looked built for a champagne bath of its own. But baseball doesn’t do fairy tales. It does moments. And sometimes, one of those moments finds the youngest man in the room.“When this happens,” Thomson said softly, “it’s like your entire world comes to a stop. It’s just a thud. It’s not a good feeling. Especially after a year like this — we were really good. We expected a lot more.”
Bottom of the 11th. Two outs. A harmless dribbler off Andy Pages’ bat. All Orion Kerkering had to do was pick it up and flip it to first. Instead, the ball glanced off his foot, the throw sailed home, and just like that, another Phillies season crashed to earth.
He bent at the waist, hands on his knees, staring at the grass while his teammates wrapped him in silence.
Thomson stood near the dugout rail, motionless. There’s no managing your way out of that.
Now comes the question no one really wants to ask out loud: Is this it for Rob Thomson?
He’s under contract through 2026, sure. He’s restored a franchise that was wandering through mediocrity for a decade. He’s guided them to a .580 winning percentage, two division titles, a pennant, and a clubhouse full of stars who swear by him.
But October is a cruel accountant. It doesn’t total up regular-season wins. It just counts rings.
“I love Topper, man,” Bryce Harper said, sitting at his locker, eyes fixed on the carpet. “He’s done a great job for us. I don’t know what the future holds — that’s a Dombrowski question. But we love Topper in here.”
The manager didn’t bite when asked if he’ll be back.
“It’s out of my control,” he said. “I’ve got sixty people in there who are brokenhearted. That’s where my head is right now.”
Maybe that’s the answer. Maybe that’s the problem.
Rob Thomson is the same every day — calm, decent, and steady in a city that treats baseball like oxygen. That’s what made him perfect for this job. But the question now isn’t about temperament. It’s about timelines.
In a sport where windows close fast and payrolls get heavy, how many more Octobers does he get to chase the one that got away?
The Dodgers’ music faded, the tarp came down, and Thomson slipped quietly out of the room. No promises. No predictions. Just another walk into a long Philadelphia winter — wondering, like the rest of us, if he’ll still be the man to write the next chapter.
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