This past weekend the winner of the most prestigious internal annual award the Phillies present was announced. The Richie Ashburn and David Montgomery Special Achievement Award goes annually to the Phillies employee who demonstrates the same loyalty, passion and dedication to the club as the awards namesakes.
This year‘s award recipient is Tom Burgoyne ... the longtime Phanatic’s “best friend“. Tom began wearing the big green suit back in 1989 serving as the backup Phanatic Representative thru the 1993 season. In 1994 he became the primary Phillie Phanatic Entertainment Representative and has been delighting Phillies fans for over thirty years !
“The Phanatic never gets down and never has a bad day ... even when the team is down. We can learn a lot from him.” Burgoyne said in a 2015 interview. He and his two backup Phanatic Representatives attend hundreds of events each year.
The Phillie Phanatic is widely acclaimed as one of sports best mascots. In 2002, the Phillie Phanatic was included in baseball’s Hall of Fame and is currently part of a permanent exhibit in Cooperstown.
Burgoyne is also an accomplished author, co host of a Phillies podcast with John Brazer and has been a successful speaker for many years in the Delaware Valley. He is very deserving of the award and truly epitomizes the “loyalty, passion and dedication“ to the Phillies that Mr. Ashburn and Mr. Montgomery lived and displayed daily.
I have the good fortune to occasionally correspond with Tom and sent him a congratulatory note ... he responded “Thanks, Steve. To win an award named after Whitey and David is very humbling. Hope to see you in February !“ That’s the Phanatic for ya, always looking forward and thinking of us fans ... a huge congrats to Mr. Burgoyne for an honor well deserved !
Here‘s a list of the Ashburn/Montgomery Award winners :
1998 - Pete Cera
1999 - Paul Owens
2000 - Ray Krise
2001 - Eddie Ferenz
2002 - Maje McDonnell
2003 - Larry Shenk
2004 - Christine Long
2005 - Mike DiMuzio
2006 - Kathy Killian
2007 - Kurt Funk
2008 - Richard Deats
2009 - Dan Stephenson
2010 - Dan Goroff
2011 - Jerry Clothier
2012 - Rob Holliday
2013 - Bettyanne Robb
2014 - Chris Wheeler
2015 - James Rodriquez
2016 - Michael Stiles
2017 - Chris Pohl
2018 - Lee McDaniel
2019 - Dickie Noles
2020 - Tom Burgoyne
Happy Day, Happy Baseball ⚾️
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