The Catcher Was a Spy: The Mysterious Life of Moe Berg
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Book Overview
NATIONAL BESTSELLER Now a major motion picture starring Paul Rudd "A delightful book that recounts one of the strangest episodes in the history of espionage. . . . . Relentlessly entertaining."-- The New York Times Book Review Moe Berg is the only major-league baseball player whose baseball card is on display at the headquarters of the CIA. For Berg was much more than a third-string catcher who played on several major league teams between 1923 and 1939. Educated at Princeton and the Sorbonne, he as reputed to speak a dozen languages (although it was also said he couldn't hit in any of them) and went on to become an OSS spy in Europe during World War II. As Nicholas Dawidoff follows Berg from his claustrophobic childhood through his glamorous (though equivocal) careers in sports and espionage and into the long, nomadic years during which he lived on the hospitality of such scattered acquaintances as Joe DiMaggio and Albert Einstein, he succeeds not only in establishing where Berg went, but who he was beneath his layers of carefully constructed cover. As engrossing as a novel by John le Carré, The Catcher Was a Spy is a triumphant work of historical and psychological detection.
Format:Paperback
Language:English
ISBN:0679762892
ISBN13:9780679762898
Release Date:May 1995
Publisher:Vintage
Length:480 Pages
Weight:1.03 lbs.
Dimensions:1.1" x 5.1" x 7.9"
Customer Reviews
5 ratings
Baseball and Spys
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 16 years ago
I heard about this book from an old veteran at a Veteran's Day function. It is all I expected and more. Moe Berg was a supremely intelligent man, a baseball fanatic, and an enigmatic person. A genuine page turner
A REAL-LIFE JOHN LE CARRE CHARACTER
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 21 years ago
Moe Berg is truly one of the most interesting, and enigmatic, characters in sports history. What always fascinated me was how, after WWII and no longer in baseball, Berg never worked. He would stay at friends and relatives' homes throughout the country, reading multiple newspapers, and maintaining strict control of those papers. My guess, and this would make for an interesting investigative study, is that he stayed on the OSS/CIA payroll and was working for them, in some capacity: Dissecting the news, dealing with Communist espionage - or who knows, maybe he was working with foreign elemnets. Berg was something. He has to be considered a major hero. Surely the fact that he was an ex-ballplayer makes him stand out from the other heroes under "Wild Bill" Donovan, as does the fact that a Jew was sent to Nazi-controlled Finland to get German scientists. This is a terrific story. (...)
Skullduggery, twisted mentalities, wartime brutality ...
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 24 years ago
The skullduggery of spies; the warped mental state of the homeless vagabond, Jewish concerns in the war, and baseball on top of all that!Great reading.
Perfect Summer Reading
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 26 years ago
Here is a book that is beautifully written and also tells a great story. No, a really great story. I read about it in the Boston Globe where the reviewer said he couldn't put it down, and I bought it then and never read it. I just did. You should too. Bravo.
Fascinating story, well crafted
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 26 years ago
This book is among a handful of truly fascinating books I have read in the last few years. Berg's life was a truly remakrable collection of experiences--pro ball player, polyglot, and undercover agent. What more impressive resume could a person want in WWII-era America? Yet something was wrong in the life of Berg, and that is the story within the story that Dawidoff tells with a masterful stroke. At a time when WWII and its heroes form the glamorous backdrop to so many films and books, it is refreshing to read a story set in that era about a remarkable man who was just as much a human being as we are today.
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