by Brian Biegel. Crown, 2009.
Miracle Ball is at once a sweet and haunting book.
The premise has the author, whose day job is that of an independent filmmaker, on an obsessive quest to find the whereabouts of an/or ownership of the ball hit by Bobby Thomson in the 1951 playoff game against the Brooklyn Dodgers. (He produced a documentary by the same name.)
Why is this of such interest to Biegel?
On the one hand, it seems like a way to pay honor to his beloved father, who may or may not have said ball, which he acquired as a young man in Brooklyn. On the other, given Biegel’s admission of mental illness brought on (or exacerbated) by a series of unfortunate circumstances — and without trying to play armchair psychiatrist — an extension/manifestation of those problems.
This is not to say that the book is not entertaining. To the contrary, it reads like a detective novel, as Biegel follows leads, tracks down connections to the ball, hire detectives, and studies evidence to lead him to his goal: proving the charlatan “experts” of baseball memorabilia wrong in their assertions that there was no way his dad could have had the ball.
Biegel’s description of forensic methods used to study photographs is a page taken out of today’s popular TV crime dramas, but you wonder why these detectives and technicians would go through the trouble. The photographs used in the book to “prove” Biegel’s suspicions as to who caught the ball in the crowd that day are not well served, given the limitations of the printed page of the book. Perhaps they were sharper in the original and therefore more reliable; it is impossible for the reader to judge.
And while Biegel admits the shortcomings of the photographic equipment of the early 1950s, he is nevertheless quite certain that what he shots he does have bear out his theories. In one chapter he describes a photo in which sportswriter Tommy Holmes is running against the crowd towards the stands, ostensibly to locate the person who caught Thomson’s blast. He identifies Holmes, who was missing part of his left arm (bringing to mind The Fugitive, one of the most popular TV shows of all time, and another story of obsession), in one shot, but what if it was a bad camera angle that hid part of that limb, making it seem missing?
For all the questionable conclusions, Yet Biegel remains a sympathetic author. There is no doubt the affection and support shared in his family. His heart is definitely in the right place. In the end, that might be all that’s important.
You can read an excerpt here.
is available on Amazon.com,
Comments on this entry are closed.