As Rob Thomson makes Canadian baseball history, his roots are firmly in his home country

In the spring of 1982, Dennis Schooley drove 90 miles to Sarnia, Ontario, for the sole purpose of scouting Mike Gardiner, a touted right-handed pitcher whom he hoped to recruit to his semipro summer league team in nearby Stratford.

That was where he encountered Rob Thomson.

“It was almost a fluke,” Schooley said the other day.

Forty years later, Schooley was in attendance Tuesday night at Rogers Centre in Toronto when Thomson, now the Phillies interim manager, became the first Canadian to manage a Major League Baseball game in his home country.

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And if you don’t think that’s a big deal, well, tell it to eight of Thomson’s teammates on the 1984 Canadian Olympic baseball team who will be watching from a suite. Or the dozens of others who came up with Thomson along the way and are poised to welcome him home.

“Certainly for someone like me, and probably everybody that he played with, it’s a huge deal,” Schooley said. “You never want to claim someone else’s success, but it just makes you feel good when one of ours gets to this level. It’s just wonderful. It’s fantastic.”

Thomson, 58, has rarely been the star of the show. He had a brief playing career in the minor leagues with the Detroit Tigers, worked behind the scenes as an instructor before joining the Yankees’ coaching staff in 2008, and was Joe Girardi’s right-hand man for many of the last 14 years. Then came June 3, when the Phillies fired Girardi and made Thomson the first Canadian manager in the majors since George Gibson with the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1934.

In his typically humble manner, Thomson downplayed his return to Canada. He said he hopes the Blue Jays don’t plan an emotional scoreboard tribute. Asked in jest if he was asked to throw a ceremonial first pitch, he deadpanned, “Don’t give them any ideas.”

But Thomson dropped his guard for a few minutes Sunday morning and let on how much the two-game series in Toronto will mean to him. He grew up in Corunna, a small town on the Ontario-Michigan border, and rooted hard for the Toronto Maple Leafs. His roots are in Canada. He lives in Stratford in the offseason.

“I’m a proud Canadian,” Thomson said.

And his career may never have taken flight if not for the opportunity that he got from Schooley.

Consider this: Thomson was playing for Schooley’s Stratford Hillers in the summer of 1983 when he found out that his junior college in Port Huron, Mich., was dropping its baseball program. He played for St. Clair County Community College in 1982-83 and planned to go back the following season.

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In need of somewhere to play, Thomson spoke with Hillers teammates Dennis Coplen and Bill Yelton, two Americans who came to Canada in the summer between seasons at the University of Kansas. They put him in touch with Kansas coach Marty Pattin, a former Kansas City Royals pitcher.

“He came up and saw me play,” Thomson said. “Offered me a scholarship, and that was the end of the story.”

More like the beginning.

Thomson recognized other advantages to playing in Stratford. Because he was 18 when he arrived, he was able to play for the Hillers’ junior team in addition to the main team, which was coached by Schooley.

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“So I played almost every night,” Thomson said. “For my development, it was so huge just playing every day. And playing with grown men.”

On the recruiting mission to Sarnia, Schooley saw Thomson “throwing bullets to second.” In addition to the arm strength, Schooley observed a doubles hitter and a “take-charge guy” behind the plate.

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“He downplays himself as a player much more than he should,” Schooley said. “He was a good player.”

Thomson batted .352 with 15 home runs and 74 RBIs in 95 games over four summers with the Hillers, according to records kept by the Intercounty Baseball League, which he equates to double-A competition. He joined Gardiner for the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, and they formed the battery that led Canada to its only victory in the tournament, 6-4, over Japan at Dodger Stadium.

But Canada didn’t reach the medal round, and the Hillers were in the playoffs back home. Thomson talked Gardiner into leaving before the closing ceremonies.

“I said to Gardi, ‘We’re wasting time here. Our team’s in the playoffs. It would be great to go through the closing ceremonies, but we have a responsibility to these other guys, too,’” Thomson said. “So we got clearance to get out of the Olympic Village and hopped on a plane.”

The Hillers didn’t win the championship. Schooley likes to kid Thomson that his tenure marked the only four-year period in 27 years that the team didn’t win at least one title.

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But Schooley also hasn’t forgotten Thomson’s commitment.

“It speaks volumes to the type of personality that he has and why he’s gotten to where he is,” Schooley said. “A Canadian kid making it to where he is right now? That’s pretty cool.”

When the Phillies won their first three games after the managerial change, Schooley joked with Thomson that he should retire as the only undefeated manager in major league history.

“But he didn’t go for it,” Schooley said, laughing.

Good thing, too. The Phillies actually started 8-0 under Thomson. Entering Tuesday’s game, they had gone 24-12 overall after starting 22-29 and climbed back into the National League playoff race. In the last 30 days, they’ve gone from a 31% chance to reach the postseason to a 70.1% chance, according to Baseball Reference.

“It’s great that he’s been given this opportunity,” Schooley said. “I think he obviously always wanted it. We never talked about it a lot. But it’s a big deal for us, absolutely. Will it make headlines in the front page? No, but in a lot of sports pages, yeah, you bet it will.”