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

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

3.59 of 5 stars 3.59 · rating details · 553 ratings · 51 reviews

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-Tim...more

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Published November 2nd 2011 by Vintage (first published 1994)

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Sep 04, 2008 Deborah Edwards rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Baseball and spies. Two of my favorite subjects. I really wanted to like this book. Not only was Moe Berg a catcher for the Red Sox and one of the first Jewish players in baseball, but he also happened to do a little moonlighting in espionage on the side. It should have made for a riveting story, full of twists and turns, savory Cold war nuggets and revealing baseball lore. And in the hands of another author, perhaps it would have. But somehow, in the hands of Nicholas Davidoff, it reads like on...more

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May 17, 2013 Neil Pierson rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

After his career ends, a major league baseball player becomes a spy for the U.S. government. If that isn't unusual enough, the baseball player/spy is extremely smart and extremely eccentric.

Moe Berg was the brainy son of a pharmacist. He was admitted to Princeton in 1925 and became a star baseball player there. He went on to play for the Dodgers, Red Sox, and White Sox while obtaining his law degree from Columbia.

He volunteered for government service in World War II and eventually joined the Off...more

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Jan 26, 2012 Alexandria Barilone rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The Catcher was a spy: the secret life of Moe Berg by Nicholas Dawidoff is a biography on the famous catcher Moe Berg. Throughout the book you start with the smart young Morris Berg, and learn about his amazing learning ability. As Moe grows up we learn about his passion for baseball and see him play for Princeton, The Red Soxs, Dodgers, and many other big league teams. As he grows he learns his real calling in baseball is to be a catcher, rather than the shortstop position he had previously mad...more The Catcher was a spy: the secret life of Moe Berg by Nicholas Dawidoff is a biography on the famous catcher Moe Berg. Throughout the book you start with the smart young Morris Berg, and learn about his amazing learning ability. As Moe grows up we learn about his passion for baseball and see him play for Princeton, The Red Soxs, Dodgers, and many other big league teams. As he grows he learns his real calling in baseball is to be a catcher, rather than the shortstop position he had previously made. In the 1940’s Moe Berg found a job that suited him perfectly, and that was being a spy. He was a very mysterious man and no one every truly knew the real Moe Berg.

This book helped me understand a lot more about World War two. During Hitler’s A Bomb scare Moe was a spy who was sent to track down any information he could on the bomb, and the scientist. The scientist in charge was Dr. Werner Heisenberg, he was a German scientist who refused to leave Germany, but was anti-Nazi. He followed clues trying to figure out where Heisenberg was, which allowed Berg to do what he loved most, travel. During Moe’s many missions, they would periodically lose touch with him for weeks to even months, and the next ting you’d know Moe was back after spending a ton of money and claiming what he did was top secret. Moe was extremely good at his job. He received extremely important Intel that helped the US. He found out that Hitler’s A Bomb was just a hoax, and saved Dr.Heisenberg’s life, there were many ideas to end Heisenberg’s life, and Berg nearly did himself, but he made a choice and decided that the Doctor was not a Nazi, just a very nationalistic German, and spared the doctors life. There were also talks of having him kidnapped and brought to the US, although they were considered they never really happened. Berg did meet Hiesenberg once, he listened to a molecular physics lecture that Moe had to use to Judge wither or not Hiesenberg was a threat, in the end he was not.
Moe was extremely secretive; the author quotes a huge Moe berg fan whom followed him for years. Owen a fan who tracked most of moe's life says “I don’t know him now. I don’t know if anybody knows Moe Berg. He kept secrets from everybody. Nobody’ll ever know him.” (Pages 4-5). The author’s bias for writing the book was that he wanted to show the world who the real Moe Berg was; everyone knew a different side of him. He was completely different person with his family, his friends, his teammates and in the OSS. He always kept what he felt to himself, he was a very self-conscience man, he was Jewish and had to deal with some anti-Semitism at his college Princeton, and when he played baseball. When growing up his dad tried to hide their beliefs while trying to keep them at the same time. This confused him a lot, and helped created what seems to be a social phobia although it’s odd. Moe was scared to tell people too much of himself, yet he was more than happy to pose for pictures, and always knew how to speak and react to people. Other people always had no problem opening up to berg and becoming quick friends, although his friendships never lasted long. I’ve learned a lot about Moe Berg, he has become one of my favorite people throughout reading this book, and even though no one will ever truly know a hundred percent of Moe Berg I feel like I'm close to it and I relate to him on many different aspects of life. Moe Berg was a well-liked, well known, and knowledgeable man.
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May 14, 2012 Malcolm Anderson is currently reading it · review of another edition

#4 This book is quite possibly a hundred billion times better than the Awakening, almost as good as the Catcher in the Rye, better than the Great Gatsby, better than the Crucible, and not quite as good as small portion that we read of the Things We Carried, just to put this book in perspective with the others we have read this year. In this book, there is a "dream" portrayed. Moe Berg loved playing baseball more than anything else in his world. It made him happy just to be around the game, even...more #4 This book is quite possibly a hundred billion times better than the Awakening, almost as good as the Catcher in the Rye, better than the Great Gatsby, better than the Crucible, and not quite as good as small portion that we read of the Things We Carried, just to put this book in perspective with the others we have read this year. In this book, there is a "dream" portrayed. Moe Berg loved playing baseball more than anything else in his world. It made him happy just to be around the game, even if he didn't play. If possible, he would have continued to stay involved in baseball until he died, but because of the other endeavors he took on in his life, that idea was not feasible. As a first generation American Jew, his father set high standards for him, and so did society. He was expected to be very intelligent and do great things. But what was expected of him was far below what he accomplished in his life.

Moe Berg became the best baseball player ever to graduate from Princeton, one of the best lawyers of his time, and one of the greatest intellectuals of his time. He had theoretical conversations with Albert Einstein, and played in the Major Leagues for 20 years. That is successful in any society. Fortunately for Moe Berg, he was able to adapt to many different cultures and remember everything he saw, read or heard. He was quite possibly the most succesful man in the widest range of expertise of this past century. The only fault he carried was the slight awkwardness when trying to keep himself busy when speaking to someone he did not like or thought was unintelligent. Besides this one small fault, moslty everything else Moe Berg participated in, he excelled and mastered. Moe Berg was succeful.

#2 Moe Berg is a very complicated character who reveals little of his true personality. He is a man who has a wide breadth of knowledge and he increasing that range everyday. I am someone who likes to talk to people and listen to what they have to say, while disecting what is really going on behind a facade of knowledge such as Berg. So therefore, yes, I would enjoy talking to Moe Berg. He is a baseball player and I am a baseball player. He is a catcher and I am a catcher. We match up very well.
I enjoy watching people and disecting what their true story is without any prior knowledge. Berg is a spy who can charm any person into revealing information. Berg is someone I would really enjoy listening and talking to because of his expansive knowledge of quite a few of the things I love. He could enlighten me onto how it is to hit a Major League fastball and what it's like to get caught in customs in Russia. Moe Berg is someone I would definitely hit it off with.
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Dec 15, 2012 Larry Hostetler rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book portended to be ideal for me. A combination of my love of baseball, spycraft and biography, it neither disappointed nor wowed me. Moe Berg was not a name of which I was aware, since he was never a star. I don't even remember his baseball card (which is the only one on display at the CIA). I love a good character and Moe certainly qualifies as a character. Perhaps because so much of his life was inscrutable but could only be pieced together by conjecture, there was an unsatisfying natur...more

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Jan 11, 2009 Simmoril rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I can't honestly remember how I came across Moe Berg's name, but when I first heard about him, I was immediately intrigued. A Princeton graduate, a polyglot, a professional baseball player, and an American spy, Moe Berg seemed to have all the makings for an exciting biography.

Dawidoff's account of Moe Berg's life covers quite a bit of ground, detailing Moe Berg's baseball career, his work as a spy during WWII, and finally his decline in his later years after he was let go from the espionage busi...more

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Aug 29, 2012 Mark rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A meticulously researched biography about the third-string Boston Red Sox catcher whom the OSS assigned to assassinate Werner Heisenberg during World War II. Oddly enough, the book's first third, which chronicles Berg's major league baseball career, is more intriguing than its second third, which traces Berg's secret missions in Europe on the trail of the Nazi nuclear program: it's as if the author found it more fascinating that an eccentric intellectual could be a professional athlete than that...more

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Sep 03, 2011 Hannah Kirchner rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Davidoff didn't consider the eccentric side of the Berg family far enough. They all seemed to have autistic/OCD tendencies, and I think it was a consideration worth examining.

At the end of the book, Davidoff wraps things up too briefly and neatly, too willing to pat Moe on the back for living an unusual life of his own choosing.

Yeah, the guy lived an "interesting" life, but it was largely an unexamined, deluded, lonely, and unhappy one, spent running from himself. How Davidoff deduces that Ber...more

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Feb 28, 2011 Alan rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: boston-them, non-fiction, baseball

Moe Berg was a really hard-to-categorize character. He was or maybe not at times a mediocre baseball player, idiot savant, linguistic expert, hobby physicist, CIA spy, friend of the powerful, mentally ill, homeless, wealthy, poor, a ladies man, or recluse.

The book delved into all these possibilities but its biggest shortcoming was that it was a narrative without a unifying theme. If the writer had spent some time analyzing (or getting some expert analysis) on Moe the book would have been more th...more

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Aug 13, 2010 Michael rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: sports, mystery

I have never read a book that was such a chore to finish.
I felt like making a flow chart to follow all the people and a map to keep track of all the places he went. I found it a very confusing book to read.

Many of the people quoted in the book say what a great story teller Moe Berg was, yet the story is told so poorly by the author. The people also say how secretive Berg was and that most of the time no one knew how he could afford to live let alone what he was doing from day to day and that ma...more

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Jan 17, 2013 Matt rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: biography, espionage, nonfiction, sports

If the purpose of a biography is to produce an honest, interesting account of a life, then this succeeds very well. For those hoping for a book primarily about baseball, or espionage, this may be disappointing, because first and foremost it's a book about Moe Berg.

From my perspective the book breaks down into three parts. The first part is his childhood and baseball, the second part is the OSS and WWII, and the third part is about the strange man he became when his strongest ties (baseball and...more

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Jan 09, 2008 Rick rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, sports

Moe Berg was a fascinatingly enigmatic figure, an intellectual jock, a publicly private man, a journeyman baseball player of the late 20s and 30s, an OSS spy during the Second World War, a lawyer who never practiced law, a talented linguist whose most characteristic gesture was to put a raised index finger to his lips to signal silence, a curious man and born story-teller who routinely said nothing when it came to his comings, goings, doings, and personal life. He was a man whose talents opened...more Moe Berg was a fascinatingly enigmatic figure, an intellectual jock, a publicly private man, a journeyman baseball player of the late 20s and 30s, an OSS spy during the Second World War, a lawyer who never practiced law, a talented linguist whose most characteristic gesture was to put a raised index finger to his lips to signal silence, a curious man and born story-teller who routinely said nothing when it came to his comings, goings, doings, and personal life. He was a man whose talents opened the doors to numerous potential careers but after he was not picked up the by the CIA at the end of World War II never had a real job again, living a high-order vagabond’s life, a perpetual dinner and house guest, a man to borrow from Roger Miller “of means by no means” that belonged to him…but to his brother, his sister, his former colleagues and wide range of acquaintances, yes. Berg would arrive unannounced and stay until it suited him to move on, which he often did equally unannounced. He would impose his idiosyncratic needs for unviolated newspapers (he read tens of them daily), multiple daily baths, secrecy, and an appreciative audiences for his stories. What did others get out of this bizarre arrangement? The pleasure of the company of a man who could speak several languages, who had played major league baseball, who worked for Wild Bill Donovan trying to learn about and impede German progress in the construction of an atomic bomb, who traveled the world and knew everybody everywhere. Albert Einstein, Babe Ruth, Anita Loos, Nelson Rockefeller, Chico Marx, and numerous academics, scientists, journalists, spies, and barflies were among those on his virtual rolodex. He also knew newsstand owners, train conductors, restaurant owners, countermen at coffee shops, bookstore clerks and owners in cities from Boston to Miami, New York to Los Angeles, London to Tokyo, so when alone he could still nonetheless read, travel, eat, drink, etc for free whenever possible. When not alone, his hosts, even when Berg was the organizer, picked up his tab. Something diagnosable was at work here but Dawidoff doesn’t burden the reader with speculation, just recounts the stories and the behaviors (washing his suit, shirts, and underwear in the bathroom sink of friend’s houses; stacking newspapers in piles around his host’s house; underlining nearly every line of the book he was reading; making copious notes on scraps of paper, some crib notes for his conversational performance at the dinner table; walking miles and miles a day; abruptly appearing and disappearing; farcical but serious “hiding” behind bushes or in exposed doorways when someone from another context inadvertently crossed his path; and more.) Berg lived his own exceptional life, one whose exceptionality was its accomplishment, and Dawidoff does a great job sifting myth from fact and chronicling and contextualizing the days of his life. A very entertaining read for anyone who loves baseball, characters, or America in the 30s, 40s, and 50s. Plus, you have to love a man whose last words were “How are the Mets doing today?” I hope for them to be mine.(less)

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Apr 03, 2011 Ben rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Ben by: Dad

Shelves: non-fiction

The story of Moe Berg, a man who was both a catcher in the Major Leagues and a member of the OSS during World War II. Dawidoff did a phenomenal job of researching Berg's life, talking to people from all the different periods of Berg's life. The book does suffer from a few flaws though. The biggest flaw is what made Berg an interesting person--no one knew what truly made him tick. Because he was so mysterious and so reserved, no one seemed to know the true Berg (if such a person existed). This me...more

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Mar 26, 2012 Mark Ruzomberka rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

There is a reason this book was $6.50 at a used book store. It should have been a magazine article. On the surface the idea of a book about a baseball player who also was a spy was very intriguing. However, Moe Berg was neither a great baseball player nor a great spy. Granted it was still a cool story but one that was so meticulously research and told that it was very boring. The problem with the story was the lack or real conflict. At no time was Berg ever really in trouble with no issues to ov...more

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Feb 27, 2011 Artemis18 rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: bio-auto-bio

As a somewhat distant relative of Moe, I was interested in this book to learn more about him and read what my family members had to say about his eccentric behavior. The book itself was a bit of a challenge to get through, so I would only recommend it to people who already have an interest in his story and would like to read about him in great depth.

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Oct 13, 2009 Kay rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: biography, sports

I was a little disappointed in this book. The first part was good and the last part was great, but the middle part of his spy years was very dull. I expected that would be my favorite part but there were way too many details and not enough of the 'human' part of it. It took me a month to read which 3 1/2 weeks was spent on plodding thru the spy years!

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Oct 03, 2009 james rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is an excellent biography of a most fascinating character, Morris "Moe" Berg who was a catcher for the White Sox, Senators, Red Sox AND a member of the World War II OSS, which disbanded but later reformed into the CIA (sans Mr Berg.) This book offers excellent insight into baseball in the 1920s and 1930s PLUS the world of espionage in the 1940s.

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Nov 21, 2011 Ginny Messina marked it as to-read · review of another edition

Bailing on this because I don’t like the writing style. I was looking forward to it since it’s about baseball and Newark, NJ, two things that make me think of my dad and that are dear to my family’s heart. So I may try it again at a future date. And will probably read it as an ebook since (for me) it’s a good vocabulary builder.

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Nov 03, 2010 Joe Dungan rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Easily one of the most fascinating people ever to play baseball. Page after page of jaw-droppers, like what Berg did on his own in Japan to impress the OSS enough to hire him (and what he taught a geisha girl to say in English to ward off a drunken Babe Ruth). If you can get past Dawidoff's somewhat academic style, this is a terrific read.

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Sep 23, 2011 Jim rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Great book uncovering the truly mysterious life of Moe Berg. Follows Berg through his beginnings to retirement from baseball, examining his potential role in the OSS. Was he working for the US government, or was he just a whacky ballplayer that participated in some strange things while playing ball. You decide.

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Mar 19, 2013 Doug Kabak rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Just a terrific book. Describes a man who cloaks himself in mystery. So well written & researched. It does kind of trail off in the end, but it mirrors the life of the subject--who was seemingly everywhere & nowhere. Wonderful discussions of the baseball of it's time and the intrigues involved in WWII.

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Dec 22, 2009 Madge rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: biography

Fascinating story of a mediocre major leaguer, whose intelligence and personal style as a secretive person fit him well as a spy in WW II. Yet all his quirks resulted in a lonely and sad life, in my opinion. Wonderfully written, engaging and objective and compassionate.

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Sep 18, 2008 Mike McClary rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: baseball fans, spy enthusiasts

I've been wanting to read this book for years and finally got it done. I thought the story was well crafted and the pacing was good too. My biggest problem with this book was that Nicholas Dawidoff seemed, at countless points in the narrative, more interested in showing off his vast vocabulary than telling the story of Moe Berg.

If the job of the writer is to be invisible, Dawidoff failed. It almost got to the point where I was wary of the author's use of another word that I'd never heard of. Ev...more

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Mar 08, 2013 D.W. Frauenfelder rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is a gorgeous book if you like baseball, the 20th century, espionage, family, psychology, and Latin and Greek. Moe Berg was, among other things, a Classics (Latin and Greek) major at Princeton in addition to being a major league catcher and WW II spy. An engrossing read.

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Mar 01, 2012 Pablo rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Well researched, but unsatisfying. The title is slightly misleading; a more accurate title would be the spy was a catcher. My assumption about the story (and my assumptions are my fault, not the author's) was that Berg was working as a spy while he was still playing baseball. An interesting life, no doubt, but not the story I was hoping for.

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Jul 21, 2009 Nick rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: history

I expected this to be more exciting than it was. The author was so dry it seemed that Moe Berg was good at academics thanks to a photographic memory and mediocre at everything else he did. If you like true espionage stories skip this and find a better one.

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Aug 26, 2012 Mike rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Fascinating and ultimately kind of depressing story about Moe Berg, Princeton grad, major league catcher and OSS agent during WWII.

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Aug 05, 2011 Scott rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: sports

After reading, it's hard to tell what kind of person Moe Berg was, which is probably the way he would have wanted you to think.

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Apr 16, 2011 Tad rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Dawidoff committed a brilliant act of non-fiction sports journalism. I've wanted more from him since.

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Aug 04, 2012 John rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Fascinating story about a cool guy.

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