Status
Available
Call number
Genres
Collection
Publication
Vintage (1995), Edition: First Edition, Paperback, 453 pages
Description
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.… (more)
Subjects
Awards
CASEY Award (Finalist — 1994)
Language
User reviews
LibraryThing member Smiley
Interesting as the title sounds. Dawidoff has done his research.
LibraryThing member cdogzilla
Berg's life is at once fascinating and depressing. Berg was, evidently, tremendously intelligent but a little bit broken inside and Dawidoff has his hands full stitching it all together. I felt like at times he had too much redundant source material, and too little framework to hang it on. The
RIYL: A Beautiful Mind, Fear Strikes Out.
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resulting book is a bit like an undersized Xmas tree loaded up with scores of tacky ornaments, but with a few well-crafted beauties tucked in here an there, sometimes hidden by the cheap plastic baubles cluttering up the branches. That's my long-winded way of saying this book, for all it's meticulous research, needed an editor with with less patience for repetition and tangents.RIYL: A Beautiful Mind, Fear Strikes Out.
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LibraryThing member KLmesoftly
A really engaging look at a little-known individual from US history. I love all things esoteric, so I picked this up at the beginning of the summer and spent a month reading it between novels. Well-researched and interesting, if not as inspiring as one would hope (for all of his talk, Berg didn't
I would definitely recommend this to any fan of baseball, the history of US intelligence agencies, or merely eccentric individuals. This history delivers on all counts.
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really accomplish much in the end). I would definitely recommend this to any fan of baseball, the history of US intelligence agencies, or merely eccentric individuals. This history delivers on all counts.
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LibraryThing member iluvvideo
A baseball player who didn't want to play. An intelligence officer working for the government, who became even more important in his own mind. And a man who never quite fit in with close friends (or wanted to), preferring a limited relationship he could control. This is Moe Berg.
A precocious childe
On to Princeton, again excelling at his studies and becoming the best player on the university's baseball team. He became a member of the Brooklyn Robins upon graduation, getting $5000 bonus for signing. He spent the off season studying in France, Switzerland and Italy. And in March 1926, he decided to forgo spring training along with the first two months of the season to complete his first year of law school. Today that might raise few eyebrows but was unheard of back then.
He came back to baseball which for almost 20 years paid him well enough and allowed him plentiful time to explore his many other interests, including serving his country as a spy during WWII focusing on the Axis' development of atomic weapons.
If this story hasn't peeked your interest about Moe Berg, I'll be very surprised. Follow him through his life recreated from notebooks and letters that Moe himself kept. This is one of the most unusual life stories you'll ever read. Nicholas Dawidoff, the author probes deeply into the man and the myth. I found myself drawn to each successive chapter as fascinatedly peeled away layer after layer about this most unusual man.
Not perfect by a long shot, hard to befriend and develop any but the most superficial personal connections, Berg nonetheless lives a life that if not for the evidence seemed too fantastic to be true. A one of a kind biography!
A precocious childe
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gifted by innate intellectual ability , Moe demanded to start school at 3 and 1/2 years old, and went and worked diligently to build a reputation as a scholar. Berg, born into a Jewish family, was more concerned about assimilating with his peer group and being accepted as a model American boy. On to Princeton, again excelling at his studies and becoming the best player on the university's baseball team. He became a member of the Brooklyn Robins upon graduation, getting $5000 bonus for signing. He spent the off season studying in France, Switzerland and Italy. And in March 1926, he decided to forgo spring training along with the first two months of the season to complete his first year of law school. Today that might raise few eyebrows but was unheard of back then.
He came back to baseball which for almost 20 years paid him well enough and allowed him plentiful time to explore his many other interests, including serving his country as a spy during WWII focusing on the Axis' development of atomic weapons.
If this story hasn't peeked your interest about Moe Berg, I'll be very surprised. Follow him through his life recreated from notebooks and letters that Moe himself kept. This is one of the most unusual life stories you'll ever read. Nicholas Dawidoff, the author probes deeply into the man and the myth. I found myself drawn to each successive chapter as fascinatedly peeled away layer after layer about this most unusual man.
Not perfect by a long shot, hard to befriend and develop any but the most superficial personal connections, Berg nonetheless lives a life that if not for the evidence seemed too fantastic to be true. A one of a kind biography!
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LibraryThing member nmele
An interesting man's interesting story, but the sections about Berg's later years seemed a bit repetitive and overloaded with detail.
LibraryThing member DMatty5
Over-written and over-long (by more than 300 pages!!!), the story of Moe Berg might have made a good Sports Illustrated article. Stretched to nearly 400 pages, this book has little to recommend it. I certainly can't.
LibraryThing member Stahl-Ricco
The “Moeslem Religion”! That made me smile!
“I don’t care how many of them damn degrees you got, they ain’t never learned you to hit the curve.”
Moe Berg is one impressive dude! An MLB catcher, a speaker of many languages, and a spy. Secretive, semi-anti-social, and smart as a whip! It's
“I don’t care how many of them damn degrees you got, they ain’t never learned you to hit the curve.”
Moe Berg is one impressive dude! An MLB catcher, a speaker of many languages, and a spy. Secretive, semi-anti-social, and smart as a whip! It's
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hard to believe that one person could do all of this! His story is super interesting! The book was too, but started to fade (for me) about half way. Still, it has baseball and espionage, so I'm glad that I read it! Show Less
LibraryThing member AliceAnna
I was quite disappointed in this. From early on, I could see that Moe Berg was going to be more of an anti-hero than a hero, but the quirky character in the beginning turned into a pathetic loser by the end. I could have done with a lot less of his afterwar activities because, honestly, it was
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mostly the same stuff over and over in a downward spiral. Plus I found it annoying that his siblings weren't really discussed much until the end of the book. I'm OK with a narrative that isn't completely linear, but it really hurt the flow of the book by introducing it so late. Through the end of the war, I found the book to be dry but interesting. After that, it was dry, sad and disjointed. Show Less
ISBN
0679762892 / 9780679762898