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Arts & Entertainment

Syosset Man Solves 'Miracle Ball' Mystery

Brian Biegel directs award-winning documentary on search for Giants home run ball.

Syosset's Brian Biegel and Bellmore's Sal Del Giudice recently won the Best Documentary Award at the Long Island International Film Expo in Bellmore for their film Miracle Ball: Hunt for the Shot Heard Round the World.

"It's an amazing feeling," says Biegel, the film's director. "It's an honor. It's a great festival. It's run very well and professionally. And I'm just so happy to be not only nominated, but to win."

The movie chronicles Biegel's two-year search for the famous 1951 Pennant-winning home run in the playoff game between the New York Giants and Brooklyn Dodgers. The ball seemed to disappear as several people claimed they caught it, but no one could prove they had the real baseball. It has often been referred to as the "Maltese Falcon" of sports memorabilia.

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Biegel says he got the idea to make the movie from a reward that was advertised in a sports collectibles magazine. "I never knew that the Thomson ball was missing and they offered a million-dollar reward to anyone who could prove they had the actual baseball," he said. Biegel says his father has long claimed to have found the famous Thomson baseball at a bargain shop. Biegel approached Del Giudice with the idea of filming his search to prove his father's claim right or wrong.

"His dad had an old baseball and his dad was convinced that that was the actual baseball that Bobby Thomson hit," recalls Del Giudice. "He came to me with this idea and we went into production almost immediately. I'm a huge baseball fan. I thought it was an incredible idea and I'm very proud of our work."

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They conducted numerous interviews and consulted photography and forensic experts at the NYPD to determine who exactly caught the ball that day. The two pieced together a puzzle of clues in an effort to solve the nearly 60-year-old mystery.

"It's one of those great moments in sports that has been a mystery and the great reveal comes at the end of Miracle Ball," says Biegel.

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