Whatever happened to Phillies' 1980 World Series ball?

At 11:29 p.m. on Oct 21, 1980, in front of 65,839 fans at Veterans Stadium and the second-largest TV audience in World Series history, Tug McGraw threw a Rawlings baseball past Kansas City's Willie Wilson for the final out of Game 6.

Though the useful life span of that ball, stamped with commissioner Bowie Kuhn's signature and a red 1980 World Series logo, was a mere two pitches - 63 seconds, to be exact - it was the central artifact in what arguably was the greatest moment in Philadelphia sports history.

Its value might be $100,000, according to David Hunt of Hunt Auctions in Exton, and even much more to a determined collector. Its civic significance, as the item that officially and finally delivered a world championship to the historically forlorn Phillies, is inestimable.

And yet, for all its import, in the three decades since that magical Tuesday night in South Philadelphia, the wonder ball has never reappeared.

There are 1980 World Series balls for sale on eBay, with prices ranging from a few dollars to a few hundred. There are plenty that were signed later by McGraw and his teammates, many at a reunion in 2000. But, as far as anyone knows, none is the actual

ball that clinched the 97-year-old franchise's first World Series triumph.

Now, 30 years later, when passion for anything Phillies-related is at an all-time high, it seems doubtful the ball will ever be found or, if it is, authenticated.

So where might it be?

The trail dead-ends quickly, during the postgame chaos. Catcher Bob Boone handed it to McGraw as a fitting keepsake for the colorful closer, who had finished so many heart-stopping contests that October. It was an act of kindness Boone instantly regretted.

"How stupid of me," Boone said recently. "Knowing Tug, he probably gave it to some little kid."

Did he? Or is it stashed among the possessions McGraw, who died of brain cancer at 59 in 2004, left scattered about with children, ex-wives, and others? Is it on a shelf in the den of some middle-aged Philadelphian who never knew its origins? Do the Phillies unknowingly have it stored away with other dusty relics from their long history?

And if someone does claim to have the ball, can he or she prove it? Was it signed? Dated? Inscribed in any way with its significance?

No one - not the Phillies, not memorabilia experts, not McGraw's relatives nor his 1980 teammates, several of whom are here this weekend for a card show at the Valley Forge Convention Center - seems to know.