It took almost 100 years, but in 1980 the Philadelphia Phillies finally won their first World Championship. All this momentous event in Philly sports history took was Mike Schmidt’s 48 home run National League MVP season, Steve Carlton’s 24-Win Cy Young campaign, all the spark provided by the incomparable Pete Rose. Quickly dubbed the “Cardiac Kids” for their ability to snatch victory from what looked like sure defeat, the Phils topped the Houston Astros in five games to win the NL pennant for the first time in 30 years.

     In the Series they met the Kansas City Royals, led by American League MVP George Brett and his .390 hitting bat. In the first World Series played entirely on artificial turf, the Phils took the first two and then KC came back to take the next pair. Philadelphia narrowly edged the Royals in Game 5, then, in the most watched World Series game in history, Philadelphia claimed its first World Championship since the club was founded in 1883. The fruits of this historic achievement is this World Series Championship trophy, and perhaps no one associated with the team appreciated it more than this trophy’s recipient, Ken Bush. Bush was the team’s clubhouse manager and had been with the club since 1949 when he has hired as a batboy. For the next three decades Bush followed the triumph and heartbreak of the Phillies first hand, from the1950 “Whiz Kids” to the heartbreaking collapse of the 1964 team through their renaissance of the late 1970s. It is fun to think of the joy and accomplishment Ken Bush must have felt when he was finally presented with this World Championship trophy.

     The 7-1/8” diameter wooden base of this trophy features a metallic baseball and gold-plated crown at the platform's center, with Philadelphia Phillies and Kansas City Royals press pins displayed at the fore-front. Gold-colored pennants line the perimeter representing each team of both leagues. A gold-colored plaque circles the base reading “WORLD CHAMPION PHILADELPHIA PHILLIES 1980 KEN BUSH”. The trophy is in excellent condition with slight wear along the edges of the black wooden base and surface oxidation on the baseball. The trophy comes with a custom plastic and Plexiglas display case which has kept this normally brittle and easily damaged trophy safe and intact for the past 37 years. This trophy comes with a LOA from John Bush, the son of Ken Bush, who verifies the authenticity of this trophy.

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