Former Phillies pitcher Phillippe Aumont left baseball to become a farmer. Now he’s back on the mound.

Phillippe Aumont retired from baseball in the summer of 2020 after the pandemic paused the major league season. Once a Phillies prospect, Aumont had been a professional since he was 18. He grew up in Canada, dedicated his life to baseball, and pitched in 46 big-league games with the Phillies before deciding it was finally time to leave the game. He needed to find something else.

So he became a farmer, purchasing 220 acres of land in his hometown in Quebec. And the first animals he acquired were pigs.

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“I played for the IronPigs for the longest of times, and I remember we used to always get those bacon slices,” said the 37-year-old Aumont, who spent five summers in Allentown with the Phils’ triple A team. “Now, I was like, ‘Well, I can probably produce pig meat for the IronPigs’. That would be hilarious. I used to wear my IronPigs gear to go and wrestle the pigs and move them.”

Even as a farmer 400 miles from the Lehigh Valley, Aumont was reminded of baseball. Shaping his new identity was not as easy as purchasing land.

“To be honest, it took longer than I thought to get comfortable,” Aumont said. “You’re stepping away from the game because you’re like, ‘This is enough. There’s plenty of stuff in the world to do. I have a family now. I want to do other things.’ But the baseball player inside never dies. It’s fun, but it also feels like a curse. You can’t let him go. It was you your whole life. But you have to let him go. It took me a while.”

Aumont hangs his old Phillies jerseys in a closet and still has his baseball cards. His baseball life is finally behind him, but his arm is not yet done. He’ll pitch this month in the World Baseball Classic for Team Canada, which plays Wednesday in an exhibition against the Phillies in Clearwater, Fla. Aumont is scheduled to pitch against the Phils.

Aumont last pitched there in 2015 as a Phillie struggling to hold onto a dream. He’ll return this week with a new perspective.

“Let’s say you see Daniel Radcliffe and you’re going to be like, ‘Holy s—. That’s Harry Potter.’ But, no, it’s Daniel Radcliffe,” Aumont said. “It was always, ‘Hey, Phillippe. He’s the guy who plays for the Phillies.’ There was no human to it. At some point, you’re like, ‘OK, I need to make a separation, and I need to find an identity.’”

Aumont spent spring training in 2020 with the Toronto Blue Jays on a minor league deal after spending the previous season with an independent-league team in Ottawa. It seemed like one last shot to keep his career churning. The pandemic closed spring training, and Aumont returned to Canada.

His first daughter was born the previous summer, making the baseball lifestyle — “hotels, planes, trains, buses, big cities,” Aumont said — harder to fathom. So when a farm in his hometown of Gatineau, Quebec, hit the market that summer, Aumont and his wife, Frédérique, pounced. They already had planned to buy a ranch, as Frédérique grew up riding horses. Buying the farm accelerated their plans. Aumont told the Blue Jays he was finished.

“I loved baseball, but I didn’t love it as much as I loved my kid,” Aumont said. “I just felt like there was a shift in priority back then, and I made a decision based on that. No regrets. Sometimes, I’m like, ‘Damn, I could still be playing. I could’ve turned it around somewhere else and kept the career going.’ But, no. I own up to my decisions, and I think they were the best at the time.”

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The Aumonts named their farm La Ferme Pure Alternative, and their introduction seemed easy, as Aumont said prices were low during the pandemic.

“It was, like, more expensive to buy water than gas back then,” Aumont said.

But that soon changed. The expenses of farming caused the couple to shift plans. They no longer grow crops, instead leasing land to farmers who do. The Aumonts raise chickens, rabbits, and pigs and sell meat. They also have horses.

“I was raised on real meat. I’m going to die on real meat,” Aumont said. “We’re going to try to produce clean food as much as we can for a decent amount of money. We’re not trying to sell filet mignon for 75 bucks a pound. We’re slowly doing the things that we want on the farm, and hopefully it grows to something bigger and nice when we do retire, or if we ever retire. Or we just hand it to our daughters.”

The farm is just 30 minutes from Ottawa, which Aumont said is close enough to be near a major city but far enough to feel secluded. He no longer plays baseball or keeps his arm loose, but there’s a facility near his farm where he worked out a few weeks before joining Team Canada. This month’s World Baseball Classic is Aumont’s second WBC with the Canadian team since he retired. He knows how to get ready.

Aumont keeps up with the farm while working an administrative job with the Canadian government and finishing schoolwork to become a building inspector. He’s no longer just a baseball player.

“It’s fun,” Aumont said. “I get to take that guy with me once again, and then I come back home, put him back in the box, and move on to being a husband, dad, and friend.

“It’s our lives. It’s how we wake up everyday. When people come here, they’re like, ‘Wow, it’s quiet.’ This is our daily life. It was definitely a culture shock when we first came. Now I just wake up to the sound of the rooster.”

Aumont ended spring training in 2015 by packing his belongings in a red duffel bag and walking across the Phillies’ complex to the minor league camp. Six years earlier, he was acquired as part of the return in the trade that sent Cliff Lee to Seattle. But he could not crack the opening day roster for a team that lost 99 games. It was difficult.

He’s been to Clearwater as a fan since that afternoon — “I sat in center field,” he said — but has not yet pitched there in a game since his time with the Phillies ended. He could do that on Wednesday with Team Canada.

“I’m actually already nervous about it,” Aumont said. “I do have butterflies. I can’t hide it. It’s going to be emotional. I don’t know if I’ll be happy or sad. I don’t know.”

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He hasn’t been back to Allentown, either, but would love to visit the Chipotle near the ballpark where he said he “definitely paid a few months’ rent.” And then maybe he could get back to Philadelphia, where his final big league appearance came in June 2015 with a painful four-inning start against St. Louis. Aumont became a free agent a few days later and spent the next five seasons bouncing around the minor leagues.

“Philly will always have a special place in my heart. It’s always a place where it’ll be warm to my heart,” Aumont said. “I do hope I get to go back and enjoy it from the outside with the family, and my daughters can see where I was playing one day. I’m looking forward to going back one day just as a fan. I’m not looking to get attention or anything. I just would love to go back, feel those memories, and go back down memory lane and enjoy it once again.”

And if Aumont ever makes it back to Philadelphia, he’ll be more than just a baseball player this time.

“We’re just doing the small things,” Aumont said. “We enjoy peace. We get our bits of society interaction when we want to. Other than that, we stay on the farm and raise our two daughters and produce our own meat. Then I play baseball when they need an old 37-year-old retired guy.”