Miracle Ball: My Hunt for the Shot Heard 'Round the World (Hardcover)

~ (Author), Pete Fornatale (Author)

Editorial Reviews

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.

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.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Crown (May 12, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0307452689
• ISBN-13: 978-0307452689
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (98 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #105,088 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Summertime magic for baseball fans, July 31, 2009

By	ck "moonshadow" (Hawaii nei) - See all my reviews

(What's this?)

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.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Autobiographical account of a two-year search for Thomson's legendary home run ball, July 24, 2009

By	K. W. Schreiter (Conshohocken, PA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

(What's this?)

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.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars not as good as I'd hoped, July 23, 2009

By	audrey (white mtns) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

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This book is much more about the author's journey to discover his family and examine his relationships than it is about the baseball he's searching for. The premise for trying to find the ball is strained so that one doesn't quite believe the story. It's as if the writer thought of a catchy, albeit weak, link between his father and this ball for marketing purposes, but the link is tenuous enough that it all falls apart mid-trek. The writing isn't bad but the ending is unsatisfactory, with the author setting up a journey that he never finishes.