The Catcher Was a Spy: The Mysterious Life of Moe Berg

by Nicholas Dawidoff

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Biography & Autobiography. Sports & Recreations. Military. Nonfiction. HTML: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...… (more)

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What I got from the entire book of over 400 pp was that Moe Berg loved baseball and became a major league catcher but very poor hitter. He was also a gifted intellectual who gained a law degree and spoke many languages. He joined the OSS and eventually met Heisenberg, the German scientist rumored to be working on the atom bomb. Berg did not kill him though he’d been directed to do so. Good thing because the Nazis were not close to creating the bomb.
There were zillions of mentions of people and zillions of situations in this book where Moe had a part, but they didn’t stick in my mind because they didn’t recur. Moe just moved thru his life without any long relationships or jobs. I skipped lots of the last half of the book because there was no story. (

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bereanna | Nov 9, 2024 |

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 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. (

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AliceAnna | Jul 16, 2023 |

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 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! (

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Stahl-Ricco | Jul 9, 2019 |

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. (

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DMatty5 | Mar 24, 2017 |

This is a fine biography of one of the most unusual men to ever play professional sports. He didn't turn out to be much of a baseball player, possibly due to a knee injury suffered early in his career, but he stuck around for a long time as a backup catcher. But it was his non-baseball career that was truly mysterious.

speaker43 | Apr 5, 2016 |

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▾Awards and Honors

Awards

CASEY Award (Finalist – 1994)

Distinctions

New York Times bestseller (Nonfiction – 1994)

Notable Lists

SABR 50 at 50: Baseball Books

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People/Characters

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Newark, New Jersey, USA

Boston, Massachusetts, USA

Princeton, New Jersey, USA

New York, New York, USA

Paris, France

Important events

World War II (1939 | 1945)

Related movies

The Catcher Was a Spy (2018 | IMDb)

Epigraph

Dedication

For my mother and my grandmother.

First words

The Headquarters Building at the Central Intelligence Agency in Langley, Virginia, is a grim maze of identical corridors flanked by blank, color-coded office doors that are always shut tight.

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(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)

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Blurbers

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Wikipedia in English (4)

Antonio Ferri

Harold H. Bender

Nicholas Dawidoff

The Catcher Was a Spy

▾Book descriptions

Biography & Autobiography. Sports & Recreations. Military. Nonfiction. HTML: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...

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lent to walt warren 12/01/2010

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