Avid baseball fans, lovers of biographies, and spy thriller aficionados will surely delight in Nicholas Dawidoff’s The Catcher Was a Spy (Vintage). Dawidoff successfully captures the enigmatic life and times of the baseball catcher Moe Berg, highlighting Berg’s intellectual rigor, athletic prowess and resourcefulness with precision and superbly crafted prose. Berg had dual passions: academics and baseball. Possessing an outsized intellect, he started school when he was three and a half years old, later devoured diverse subjects, and excelled in linguistics. His love of baseball translated into stints in the major league. Hailed for his catching and coaching, his batting was less than stellar. Patriotic, secretive, linguistically adept, and attuned to foreign cultures, he led an ensuing career as a clandestine operative during World War II, which finally provided him with his elusive home run.
Published: NYCitywoman.com
Published: NYCitywoman.com