Posts tagged as:

Moe Berg

A reminder: The Amazon rankings are updated every hour, so these lists might not be 100 percent accurate by the time you read them (or even by the time I finish posting them). But close enough for government work, as the saying goes. In addition, occasionally the powers-that-be over there try to pull a fast […]

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I will watch any movie or TV program that has baseball as a main component of the story. So I was quite disappointed when I didn’t get to see The Catcher Was a Spy, based on Nicholas Dawidoff’s wonderful 1994 bio of Moe Berg, at the theaters. Should have realized by how quickly it moved […]

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Holy cats, has it really been almost two months since I posted one of these? Moving on… Headnote: I’ve decided to bow to the times and include separate lists for e-books and audio books. Be aware that while many titles also appear in print versions, pretty much anyone can produce an e-book these days, so […]

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I looked at a lot of video clips when writing about the recent passing of John Mahoney, the actor who played Kid Gleason, manager of the 1919 Chicago White Sox, in the film version of Eliot Asinof’s Eight Men Out. I was specifically looking for the courtroom scene but couldn’t find it. I did find […]

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It’s been said about Moe Berg that he could speak seven (or 10 or 12) languages but couldn’t hit in any of them. Baseball signed by World War II spy sells for over $17,000 Upshot: One of only two baseballs known to be signed by Moe Berg, a former major league catcher who served as […]

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Grantland recently aired Spyball, one of those 30 for 30 short documentaries produced by the folks at ESPN. Spyball is the story of Moe Berg, one of the most interesting characters to play in the Majors. A very quick recap of Berg’s career: He was a brilliant scholar, linguist, lawyer, etc., as well as mediocre […]

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Nicholas Dawidoff has pretty much done it all when it comes to non-fiction writing: memoir, biography, anthology. And done it all well. The Flyswatter, a sentimental recollection of his grandfather, was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in 2003.  His first book, The Catcher Was a Spy: The Mysterious Life of Moe Berg, is considered the […]

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Happy anniversary, Moe Berg

August 26, 2014

Where does the time go? The Bergino Baseball Clubhouse will celebrate the 20th anniversary of The Catcher Was a Spy: The Mysterious Life of Moe Berg — the definitive biography of one of game’s true characters — with a program featuring author Nicholas Dawidoff on Wednesday, Sept. 10, at 7 p.m. Dawidoff’s other books include, […]

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Bits and pieces, Jan. 23

January 23, 2014

Looking over the over-looked in baseball book (etc.) news… Now that the Yankees have once again spent a gagillion dollars restocking their pond, it’s time for another book examining how eeeeee-vil they are. And that’s the premise (and most of the title) of The Little Book of Yankees Evil by Brook Zelcer and Jelena Aleksich. The […]

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A couple of interesting pieces recently on NPR. Brad Ausmus was an extremely articulate guest on yesterday’s Fresh Air with guest host Dave Davies. In the half-hour interview, the former catcher (18 seasons) and current special assistant for the San Diego Padres discussed many of the finer points of the position, such as the interacting […]

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One of the most compelling characters in baseball history — and perhaps American culture — has to be Moe Berg, born this date in 1902. I’m not going to go into a whole lot of background about Berg. Other have written about him well and at length, including Nicholas Dawidioff’s seminal biography The Catcher Was […]

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Bits and pieces

January 20, 2011

A few items of special interest to the Jewish fans out there. Mark Kurlansky, author of the upcoming book Hank Greenberg: The Hero Who Didn’t Want to Be One, was the subject of this profile in the New York Jewish Week. From the article, by Eric Herschthal: In March, Yale University Press will publish his […]

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by Kurt Willinger  (Sabre Press, 1995) Moe Berg is certainly one of the most interesting characters to ever done baseball flannels. A mediocre player — an apocryphal story quotes Casey Stengel saying “He can speak seven languages but can’t hit in any of them — Berg played for five teams over 15 seasons. Had he […]

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who died this day in 1972. Also see My Time with the Catcher Spy Morris Moe Berg, by Neil Farkas.

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Ott was born this date in 1909, Berg in 1902. Ott, who spent his entire career with the New York Giants, was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1951 on the strength of 511 home runs (the National league record for many years), 1,860 runs batted in and a .304 batting average. He died […]

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