Rob Thomson could be on a path followed by 3 other Phillies legends
by John Kincade
I was taking a stroll down memory lane thinking about the possibility that we will once again have October playoff baseball in Philadelphia. I’m not trying to jinx anything, but it certainly appears that they should deliver that dream to reality. I always look for historical context when comparing current teams and projecting future success. I found a really interesting reason to be confident that the Phillies have the right man in charge.
When looking at Rob Thomson and the amazing turnaround that has happened a few other names came to mind. Dallas Green, Paul Owens and Jim Fregosi. Three different managers that brought the Phillies to the World Series. All of them, were hired first as INTERIM managers. Now we have Rob Thomson, another interim. All 3 of the Phillies World Series managers were called in to be fixers, to clean up a mess. Thomson might be the 4th.
I’m not thinking that a World Series appearance is coming in 2022, so don’t jump me on that. I am noticing though a trend when it comes to this organization. The Phillies had a lifeless manager with an underachieving roster in 1979 and fired Danny Ozark replacing him with internal candidate Dallas Green. It didn’t bear fruit until 1980, but it worked brilliantly. The 1983 Phillies had Pat Corrales, a manger sitting in first place and they replaced him with Paul Owens. The shake up helped drive them to the World Series where they lost to the Baltimore Orioles. In 1991 the Phillies moved on from the youngest manager in the majors, Nick Leyva, just 13 games into the season. He supervised a re-tooling thru 1992 that set the stage for the dramatic 1993 season.
Three of the four times this organization has gone to the World Series in the modern era it was led by a rescue effort. Sure, Charlie Manuel came in after Larry Bowa with a clean slate but the history is there. Sometimes the candidate that is handed a mop and bucket for clean up on aisle 5 turns out to be the perfect guy for the job.
Rob Thomson shares a lot of attributes with each of those guys who led us to victory before. A trip down memory lane in 2022 would be a welcome celebration for all of us!
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