The Catcher Was a Spy: The Mysterious Life of Moe Berg Paperback – May 30, 1995

davidoff writes beautifully and he has my attention from the beginning to the end of his book. i didn't know who moe berg was before purchasing the book and wish i had known moe in person, even though i know he was annoying. am glad to have siri near me, while i'm reading....at least once a page, there's a word i don't know.after reading this, i feel i know the real moe berg....but doesn't everybody?

Fascinating insight into the life of a most unusual man -- baseball player, spy, linguist, lawyer, raconteur and more. Dawidoff's research is impressive in its depth and scope, although there were times when I thought TMI! -- too much information. On the whole, the book is well written,engaging and most of all, revealing as it follows Berg's most unconventional life, from childhood in an immigrant Jewish family in Newark, NJ, to Princeton University, to professional baseball in the 1920's, 30's, and 40's, to the OSS during WW II, and finally to his post-war life as a wanderer living on the kindness of others. In the end, Dawidoff traces many of Berg's idiosyncrasies to a strained relationship with his father, who could never accept Berg's love of baseball and refused to see his son play. In sum, an excellent read.

Before I opened this book, I thought I knew who Moe Berg was, a major league catcher in 20's and 30's who had some role in the OSS. But that isn't even close to the enigma that Dawidoff introduced me to. Berg's incredible intelligence (including a photographic memory), his linguistic capabilities and his reading habits (compulsions?) gave him an opportunity to excell as a student (Princeton, 1923) who then went to law school while simultaneously playing professional baseball. As his athletic career was winding down, he joined the OSS and specialized in investigating Germany's attempts to obtain an atom bomb. This undisciplined loner was an ideal spy for the undisciplined OSS, even though it was that trait that ultimately doomed his career with the more beaurecratic CIA. But it is the last 25 years of Berg's life that is even more fascinating because he lived by his wits even though often seemingly penniless. Imagine someone who could and did converse with Babe Ruth, Wild Bill Donovan, Albert Einstein and Clifton Fadiman. I thank the author for his diigence in researching and writing this incisive work.

Berg's life is interesting and worth reading, but the author gets lost in details. He seems to reach a point where he has no judgment as to what is worth review and so --it seems to me as a reader-- that he just includes every little morsal he uncovered during his research for the book. But, to the author's credit, his closing chapter, a summing up, brings much of Berg's life, and his family's, into final focus.

I would strongly recommend you read this fascinating book about one of the most interesting characters in our history.Beautifully written, Morris Berg is a most amazing person. Spent 19 years in Major League Baseball , But was also a scholar and Americas first atomic spy.

This is well-researched and insightful biography of Morris Berg, a Princeton and Columbia grad from Newark who was both a popular, journeyman baseball catcher for 17 years (an amazing feat in and of itself) and a prominent US spy for the OSS operating in Europe at the end of WWII searching out information on Germany’s nuclear physics efforts (or lack of them). But more it it’s about a complex, somewhat flawed individual and his inner struggles with his self esteem. A good read for both sports fans and those interested in the OSS during WWII.

Such a great story…also the movie is fantastic as well!

I found this book to be very difficult to read.The author spends far too much time on developing Moe Berg’s background and uses language in many instances to demonstrate the author’s extensive vocabulary, rather than giving the reader a free flowing, easy to read story. I do not recommend buying this tedious, very long, complicated book.