Deborah Edwards's Reviews > The Catcher Was a Spy: The Mysterious Life of Moe Berg

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 one of the dry textbooks of Moe Berg's era. Wordy, barren of excitement, the account strips down even the most interesting facts of Berg's life to their most mundane parts. I came away from this book with the belief that Davidoff had done Berg an injustice, which is really ironic considering this is a man with whom Davidoff is clearly obsessed.