Product Description

The only Major League ballplayer whose baseball card is on display at the headquarters of the CIA, Moe Berg has the singular distinction of having both a 15-year career as a catcher for such teams as the New York Robins and the Chicago White Sox and that of a spy for the OSS during World War II. Here, Dawidoff provides "a careful and sympathetic biography" (Chicago Sun-Times) of this enigmatic man. Photos.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #342692 in Books
• Published on: 1995-05-30
• Released on: 1995-05-30
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: 8.00" h x .89" w x 5.12" l, 1.06 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 480 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Dawidoff uncovers the enigmatic life of former major-league catcher Berg, who, following his baseball stint, became a spy for the OSS assigned to find information on Nazi nuclear capabilities.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Baseball catcher, lawyer, and spy-Moe Berg was all of these, but first and foremost he was an enigma. All the ascertainable facts concerning Berg's life are presented here, including his 19 years as the most famous journeyman catcher in professional baseball; his stint at Columbia University and subsequent abortive legal career; his investigation of Germany's atomic bomb program for the Office of Strategic Services (a predecessor of the CIA) during World War II; and his postwar years, in which he lived off the kindness of friends. Dawidoff has done a lot of research on a fascinating subject but draws few conclusions, and his overall theme seems to be the impenetrability of his subject. In the end, Berg remains a mystery. A marginal purchase.
--Terry Madden, Boise State Univ. Lib., Id.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
For all his renown as a big-league catcher, wartime spy, and Renaissance man, Moe Berg emerges from the pages of this book as very much a phantom. He played 13 seasons in the majors but was never more than a third-string catcher. He earned the Medal of Freedom by spying on the German's A-bomb project for the OSS but was later dropped by the CIA as ineffectual. He could use his Princeton-trained intellect to associate with Nobel laureates, diplomats, and linguists (Berg spoke many languages but, as a teammate put it, couldn't hit in any of them), yet he never truly applied that intellect. Thus, readers are left with an intriguing plot and a cast of fascinating supporting characters but a disappearing protagonist. And as with any phantom, it's entirely fair for those readers who finish the book--however great in number they may be--to ask themselves, Was he worth looking for? Alan Moores