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    The Catcher Was a Spy

    The Mysterious Life of Moe Berg

    Author Nicholas Dawidoff
    Look inside
    Paperback
    $20.00 US
    Knopf | Vintage
    On sale May 30, 1995 | 480 Pages | 9780679762898
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    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.
    Nicholas Dawidoff is the author of five books. One of them, The Fly Swatter, was a Pulitzer Prize finalist, and another, In the Country of Country, was named one of the greatest all-time works of travel literature by Condé Nast Traveller. His first book, The Catcher Was a Spy: The Mysterious Life of Moe Berg was a national bestseller and appeared on many 1994 best book lists. In 2009, Pantheon published The Crowd Sounds Happy: A Story of Love, Madness, and Baseball. His 2013 book Collision Low Crossers: A Year Inside the Turbulent World of NFL Football, was a finalist for a PEN America literary award. He is also the editor of the Library of America’s Baseball: A Literary Anthology. A graduate of Harvard University, he has been a Guggenheim, a Civitella Ranieri, and a Berlin Prize fellow and is a contributor to the New Yorker, the New York Times Magazine, and the American Scholar. View titles by Nicholas Dawidoff
    “A delightful book that recounts one of the strangest episodes in the history of espionage. . . . . Relentlessly entertaining.”—The New York Times Book Review

    “[A] meticulously researched biography. . . . . As Dawidoff tracks his elusive subject…the story becomes more than a search for the core of someone who spent his life making himself a mystery, but a dark, moving human tragedy.”—Los Angeles Times

    “[Dawidoff] has done heroic research, much of it in unlit corners. . . . Moe Berg doubtless will forever remain a mystery, but Dawidoff has brought the mystery to life.”—Washington Post

    About

    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.

    Author

    Nicholas Dawidoff is the author of five books. One of them, The Fly Swatter, was a Pulitzer Prize finalist, and another, In the Country of Country, was named one of the greatest all-time works of travel literature by Condé Nast Traveller. His first book, The Catcher Was a Spy: The Mysterious Life of Moe Berg was a national bestseller and appeared on many 1994 best book lists. In 2009, Pantheon published The Crowd Sounds Happy: A Story of Love, Madness, and Baseball. His 2013 book Collision Low Crossers: A Year Inside the Turbulent World of NFL Football, was a finalist for a PEN America literary award. He is also the editor of the Library of America’s Baseball: A Literary Anthology. A graduate of Harvard University, he has been a Guggenheim, a Civitella Ranieri, and a Berlin Prize fellow and is a contributor to the New Yorker, the New York Times Magazine, and the American Scholar. View titles by Nicholas Dawidoff

    Praise

    “A delightful book that recounts one of the strangest episodes in the history of espionage. . . . . Relentlessly entertaining.”—The New York Times Book Review

    “[A] meticulously researched biography. . . . . As Dawidoff tracks his elusive subject…the story becomes more than a search for the core of someone who spent his life making himself a mystery, but a dark, moving human tragedy.”—Los Angeles Times

    “[Dawidoff] has done heroic research, much of it in unlit corners. . . . Moe Berg doubtless will forever remain a mystery, but Dawidoff has brought the mystery to life.”—Washington Post

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