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

The Catcher Was a Spy: The Mysterious Life of Moe BergNATIONAL 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.

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 Carr , The Catcher Was a Spy is a triumphant work of historical and psychological detection.

Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Vintage
Published: 05/30/1995
ISBN: 9780679762898
Pages: 480
Weight: 1.00lbs
Size: 7.90h x 5.10w x 1.10d

Review Citations: New York Times 12/03/1995 pg. 86
Publishers Weekly 05/15/1995