I just finished reading The Catcher Was a Spy: The Mysterious Life of Moe Berg by Nicholas Dawidoff. Moe Berg played in the major leagues from 1923-1939 for a variety of teams including the Washington Senators and the Boston Red Sox. Though his talent was limited, his intellect was renown. Educated at Princeton, the Sorbonne, and Columbia Law School, he could speak about a dozen languages (but, as someone said, “couldn’t hit in any of them.”)
Berg’s baseball career was waning as the War was rising. Through a strange twist of events, Berg became involved in the world of espionage. He was even involved in a plot to put a stop to German plans to construct an atomic bomb.
Berg was quite a colorful character and Dawidoff portrays him with sensitivity without trying to engage in much psycho-literary speculation. I highly recommend this both for baseball fans and other, non-enlightened readers.
