Product Description

The captivating, utterly improbable but ultimately true story of one man’s quest to solve sports’ greatest mystery: What happened to the most famous of all home-run balls–the holy grail of sports?


October 3, 1951. Giants third baseman Bobby Thomson hit the most dramatic home run in the history of baseball. The moment occurred in the bottom of the ninth inning of a sudden-death playoff game between the New York Giants and their arch rivals from Brooklyn, the Dodgers. People across the nation watched on their new TV sets, and the home run became known as “the Shot Heard ’Round the World.”

But after clearing the left-field wall, the central artifact of the play–the ball itself–inexplicably went missing. The mystery of what happened to the legendary baseball has remained unsolved for a half century.

Until now.

Miracle Ball is the gripping account of author Brian Biegel’s two-year effort to unravel the mystery that experts said could never be solved. After his father, Jack, finds a baseball at a thrift store with clues dating back to 1951 and believes it could possibly be the most coveted piece of sports history, father and son begin a journey to prove its authenticity. Biegel becomes consumed with the quest–recognizing it as the only chance to rescue himself from an emotionally devastating personal crisis that had long been crippling him.

The trail takes Biegel, a sports fan and documentary filmmaker, from an auction house in Long Island to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, to a backroom meeting straight out of a Martin Scorsese film to a dusty oil field in Texas, finally arriving at his final destination on a quiet gravel road in New Mexico, the last place he ever expected to be.

Along the way the author meets an amazing cast of characters, including Bobby Thomson himself, who help him in his quest. Each adds their personal memories of the golden age of baseball, giving a broader scope and greater depth to this real-life detective story. As entertaining as it is inspiring, Miracle Ball is a story about faith, family, and heroes, about overcoming the odds and coming into the light, and about discovering the wondrous result of believing in yourself–and the amazing benefits of unconditional love.

A sports story for the ages, an engrossing mystery narrative, and a moving account of a man’s unbreakable bond with his family and of his struggles to save himself, Miracle Ball delivers both heart and headlines.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #361982 in Books
• Published on: 2009-05-12
• Released on: 2009-05-12
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 256 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780307452689
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

About the Author
BRIAN BIEGEL is an award-winning writer and filmmaker whose credits include Getting My Child Back: Fighting Autism and the documentary film version of this book similarly titled Miracle Ball: The Hunt for the Shot Heard Around the World. He has written and produced on-air promotions for ABC and USA networks and written and produced an Off-Broadway play called Bark Out Loud. He lives in Manhattan.

Customer Reviews

Summertime magic for baseball fans
Devoted baseball fans will tell you that their game blends head and heart more powerfully than any other. I learned my love for the Giants (by then in San Francisco) and all things baseball at my favorite uncle's knee, even though the only games I could sit in the stands for as a kid were those played by my beloved Hawaii Islanders, an AAA club. (We listened to the Giants on the radio, and the Islanders' road games as re-creations by the amazing Les Keiter, but that's a story for another day.)

The author of Miracle Ball, Brian Biegel, also found his love for baseball quite young, nurtured by his parents, who'd followed the Dodgers when they were still on the east coast, and then rooted for the expansion Mets when that program started. Nurturing and passion are two bright threads that Biegel weaves through this story of his hunt for the homerun ball that ended the Dodgers' 1951 hopes and propelled the Giants into the World Series representing the National League.

Throughout the book, Biegel shares various fans' anecdotes of that era of the game and that game in particular. Interwoven with them is the tale of personal challenges he was facing, and the incredible possibility that his own father might have bought that long-lost ball at a Salvation Army thrift shop for $2. During his 2-year search for the ball Bobby Thomson hit into the hands of an unknown fan, Biegel spoke with a number of people in the baseball world. He also tapped the expertise of police and private detectives and photo analysts. Thanks to a combination of solid research, good sources and a sprinkling of lucky coincidence, Biegel was able to trace the path of the shot heard 'round the world.

The answer to the mystery made me smile. The person who caught that ball was truly a fan. Once you read the book, I think you'll agree that the right person caught the ball. Tempting as it might be to skip ahead to look at the period photos, please don't, because Biegel's tracing of his search is much the better way for the tale of the ball to unfold.

My only nitpicks about this book are that the lead-in section runs a bit long, and that there's a little too much detail of Biegel's personal challenges, but I acknowledge that the latter is a matter of personal taste.

An interesting - albeit elementary - glimpse into one of baseball's greatest mysteries
Almost by birthright, every kid from Brooklyn is an instant Brooklyn Dodgers sentimalist. Even when - as is my case - the team's sudden exodus out West pre-dates one's own existence by decades. The Mets - of course - became the door prize to this legion of grooms left at the altar. To become a (gasp!) Yankees fan meant marrying our best friend's sister simply out of unwanted convenience.

In this commonality of lament, Jackie, The Duke, Pee Wee, Gil and Campy remain ingrained as secondhand icons, likewise the sadness of an Ebbetts Field denigrated to a nondescript apartment complex.

Dem Bums are OUR bums; NY Giants infielder Bobby Thomson the precursor to Bucky Dent. Thomson, the slap-hitting supposed second thought, who - in one swing - knifed collective hearts and baseball memories for Brooklynites past and present.

In, Brian Biegel's 'Miracle Ball,' a Dodger fan turned documentarian seeks to put an unhappily ever after to where Thomson's epic stitched trajectory calls home. Inspired by his father's mystery ball, Biegel goes on a personal and professional discovery to determine why one of baseball's greatest bits of memorabilia remained as lost as Jimmy Hoffa.

Biegel certainly tells an interesting tale in doing so, and intertwines inner mental health demons, family bonding, and baseball lore quite well with his search. Arguably the most interesting part of 'Miracle Ball' lies in his relationship with his parents, in specific his unending quest for purpose in a much grander scheme than America's Pasttime.

Unfortunately, however, Biegel does not fare as well in recounting his search for Thomson's prized souvenier. It's hard not to conjure the legendary 'Boys of Summer' in reading a book dedicated to reliving Brooklyn's baseball days, a comparison that find 'Miracle Ball' (perhaps, pun intended) completely out of its league.

Biegel book reads much like one would expect a documentary writer's recount to transcribe, a surface level common thread that circumnavigates around central themes. For a book attempting to cover so much...and so few pages...this a solid flaw in 'Miracle Ball.'

While it's impossible not to like or empathize with Biegel when concluding this book, 'Miracle Ball,' however, is best served as a baseball book centered around a singular event. Perhaps the documentary - once visuals/direction are inserted - will surpass its written counterpart.

Autobiographical account of a two-year search for Thomson's legendary home run ball
Bobby Thomson's October 3, 1951 "shot heard round the world" is one of the most famous and romanticized events of 20th century American sports and common knowledge to most baseball fans. The home run ball flew over the Polo Grounds' outfield wall and seemed to disappear from history. After "recovering from a bitter divorce, and struggling with crippling depression and anxiety", the author spent two years trying to find conclusive proof of what happened to the baseball. He was inspired in part by his father's insistence that a dirty baseball with signatures of the 1951 Giants bought at a secondhand store for $2 is in fact "the ball". The author relates how his quest helped get his life back on track, but unfortunately the narrative is not very interesting and seems long even at only 250 pages. There are a few chapters of baseball history, including an interview with Bobby Thomson himself, but much of the book consists of dull pursuits of dead end leads and biographies of bit characters. Those with familial roots in early 1950's New York City will enjoy the nostalgic rehash more than me. I enjoyed Biegel's survey of the cultural references to this event (and agree that the opening to Don DeLillo's "Underworld" is my favorite treatment) but found myself skimming through much of the book looking for the ultimate resolution.