The Spy Who Played Baseball

Moe Berg is not a typical baseball player. He's Jewish—very unusual for the major leagues in the 1930s—has a law degree, speaks several languages, and loves traveling the world. He also happens to be a spy for the U.S. government. When World War II begins, Moe trades his baseball career for a life of danger and secrecy. Using his unusual range of skills, he sneaks into enemy territory to gather crucial information that could help defeat the Nazis. But he also has plenty of secrets of his own. . .

Kar-Ben Read-Aloud eBooks with Audio combine professional narration and text highlighting to bring eBooks to life! Moe Berg is not a typical baseball player. He's Jewish—very unusual for the major leagues in the 1930s—has a law degree, speaks several languages, and loves traveling the world. He also happens to be a spy for the U.S. government. When World War II begins, Moe trades his baseball career for a life of danger and secrecy. Using his unusual range of skills, he sneaks into enemy territory to gather crucial information that could help defeat the Nazis. But he also has plenty of secrets of his own. . .

NATIONAL BESTSELLER Now a major motion picture starring Paul Rudd “A delightful book that recounts one of the strangest episodes in the history of espionage. . . . . Relentlessly entertaining.”—The New York Times Book Review Moe Berg is the only major-league baseball player whose baseball card is on display at the headquarters of the CIA. For Berg was much more than a third-string catcher who played on several major league teams between 1923 and 1939. Educated at Princeton and the Sorbonne, he as reputed to speak a dozen languages (although it was also said he couldn't hit in any of them) and went on to become an OSS spy in Europe during World War II. As Nicholas Dawidoff follows Berg from his claustrophobic childhood through his glamorous (though equivocal) careers in sports and espionage and into the long, nomadic years during which he lived on the hospitality of such scattered acquaintances as Joe DiMaggio and Albert Einstein, he succeeds not only in establishing where Berg went, but who he was beneath his layers of carefully constructed cover. As engrossing as a novel by John le Carré, The Catcher Was a Spy is a triumphant work of historical and psychological detection.

Some people call him the smartest baseball player of all time. Moe Berg could speak twelve languages—and make up signs on the baseball diamond. How did this major league catcher go on to become an American spy in World War II?

Herzog ("H Is for Home Run: A Baseball Alphabet") teams up with photographer Milne to create a visual puzzle book that challenges the deductive skills and sharp eyes of baseball fans.

Traces the life of a man who managed two successful careers, as a baseball player and as a secret agent during World War II.

As a boy, Kenichi “Zeni” Zenimura dreams of playing professional baseball, but everyone tells him he is too small. Yet he grows up to be a successful player, playing with Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig! When the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor in 1941, Zeni and his family are sent to one of ten internment camps where more than 110,000 people of Japanese ancestry are imprisoned without trials. Zeni brings the game of baseball to the camp, along with a sense of hope. This true story, set in a Japanese internment camp during World War II, introduces children to a little-discussed part of American history through Marissa Moss’s rich text and Yuko Shimizu’s beautiful illustrations. The book includes author and illustrator notes, archival photographs, and a bibliography.