Download or read book The Catcher Was a Spy written by Nicholas Dawidoff and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2011-11-02 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Moe Berg written by Jeri Cipriano and published by Red Chair Press. This book was released on 2018-08-01 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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?
Download or read book Moe Berg written by Louis Kaufman and published by . This book was released on 1996-09-01 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Catcher written by Peter Morris and published by Government Institutes. This book was released on 2009-04-16 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Today the baseball catcher is a familiar but uninspiring figure. Decked out in the so-called tools of ignorance, he stolidly goes about his duty without attracting much attention. But it wasn't always that way, as Peter Morris shows in this lively and original study. In baseball's early days, catchers stood a safe distance back of the batter. Then the introduction of the curveball in the 1870s led them to move up directly behind home plate, even though they still wore no gloves or protective equipment. Extraordinary courage became the catcher's most notable requirement, but the new positioning also demanded that the catcher have lightning-fast reflexes, great hands, and a cannon for a throwing arm. With so great a range of needed skills, a special mystique came to surround the position, and it began to seem that a good catcher could single-handedly make the difference between winning and losing.
Download or read book Wherever I Wind Up written by R.A. Dickey and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2013-03-26 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The perfect gift for baseball fans, now with a new epilogue by author R.A. Dickey, winner of the 2012 Cy Young award. "An astounding memoir—haunting and touching, courageous and wise."—Jeremy Schaap, bestselling author, Emmy award-winning journalist, ESPN In 1996, R.A. Dickey was the Texas Rangers’ much-heralded No. 1 draft choice. Then, a routine physical revealed that his right elbow was missing its ulnar collateral ligament, and his lifelong dream—along with his $810,000 signing bonus—was ripped away. Yet, despite twice being consigned to baseball’s scrap heap, Dickey battled back. Sustained by his Christian faith, the love of his wife and children, and a relentless quest for self-awareness, Dickey is now the starting pitcher for the Toronoto Blue Jays (he was previously a star pitcher for the New York Mets) and one of the National League’s premier players, as well as the winner of the 2012 Cy Young award. In Wherever I Wind Up, Dickey eloquently shares his quintessentially American tale of overcoming extraordinary odds to achieve a game, a career, and a life unlike any other.
Download or read book Baseball written by Nicholas Dawidoff and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 744 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Includes stories, memoirs, poems, news reports, and insider accounts about all aspects of baseball from its pastoral nineteenth-century beginnings to now.
Download or read book The Bastard Brigade written by Sam Kean and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2019-07-09 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From New York Times bestselling author Sam Kean comes the gripping, untold story of a renegade group of scientists and spies determined to keep Adolf Hitler from obtaining the ultimate prize: a nuclear bomb. Scientists have always kept secrets. But rarely have the secrets been as vital as they were during World War II. In the middle of building an atomic bomb, the leaders of the Manhattan Project were alarmed to learn that Nazi Germany was far outpacing the Allies in nuclear weapons research. Hitler, with just a few pounds of uranium, would have the capability to reverse the entire D-Day operation and conquer Europe. So they assembled a rough and motley crew of geniuses -- dubbed the Alsos Mission -- and sent them careening into Axis territory to spy on, sabotage, and even assassinate members of Nazi Germany's feared Uranium Club. The details of the mission rival the finest spy thriller, but what makes this story sing is the incredible cast of characters -- both heroes and rogues alike -- including: Moe Bergm, the major league catcher who abandoned the game for a career as a multilingual international spy; the strangest fellow to ever play professional baseball. Werner Heisenberg, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist credited as the discoverer of quantum mechanics; a key contributor to the Nazi's atomic bomb project and the primary target of the Alsos mission. Colonel Boris Pash, a high school science teacher and veteran of the Russian Revolution who fled the Soviet Union with a deep disdain for Communists and who later led the Alsos mission. Joe Kennedy Jr., the charismatic, thrill-seeking older brother of JFK whose need for adventure led him to volunteer for the most dangerous missions the Navy had to offer. Samuel Goudsmit, a washed-up physics prodigy who spent his life hunting Nazi scientists -- and his parents, who had been swept into a concentration camp -- across the globe. Irène and Frederic Joliot-Curie, a physics Nobel-Prize winning power couple who used their unassuming status as scientists to become active members of the resistance. Thrust into the dark world of international espionage, these scientists and soldiers played a vital and largely untold role in turning back one of the darkest tides in human history.
Download or read book The Amazing Tale of Mr Herbert and His Fabulous Alpine Cowboys Baseball Club written by DJ Stout and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2010-09-01 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Photographs and text chronicle the history of the Alpine Cowboys, the semipro baseball team from Texas's Big Bend region, describing owner Herbert L. Kokernot Jr., the team's players, stadium, and fans, and related topics.
Download or read book Invisible Men written by Donn Rogosin and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2007-03-01 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Negro baseball leagues were a thriving sporting and cultural institution for African Americans from their founding in 1920 until Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in 1947. Rogosin's narrative pulls the veil off these "invisible men" and gives us a glorious chapter in American history.
Download or read book Wild Bill Donovan written by Douglas Waller and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2012-02-21 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Entertaining history...Donovan was a combination of bold innovator and imprudent rule bender, which made him not only a remarkable wartime leader but also an extraordinary figure in American history" (The New York Times Book Review). He was one of America's most exciting and secretive generals--the man Franklin Roosevelt made his top spy in World War II. A mythic figure whose legacy is still intensely debated, "Wild Bill" Donovan was director of the Office of Strategic Services (the country's first national intelligence agency) and the father of today's CIA. Donovan introduced the nation to the dark arts of covert warfare on a scale it had never seen before. Now, veteran journalist Douglas Waller has mined government and private archives throughout the United States and England, drawn on thousands of pages of recently declassified documents, and interviewed scores of Donovan's relatives, friends, and associates to produce a riveting biography of one of the most powerful men in modern espionage. William Joseph Donovan's life was packed with personal drama. The son of poor Irish Catholic parents, he married into Protestant wealth and fought heroically in World War I, where he earned the nickname "Wild Bill" for his intense leadership and the Medal of Honor for his heroism. After the war he made millions as a Republican lawyer on Wall Street until FDR, a Democrat, tapped him to be his strategic intelligence chief. A charismatic leader, Donovan was revered by his secret agents. Yet at times he was reckless--risking his life unnecessarily in war zones, engaging in extramarital affairs that became fodder for his political enemies--and he endured heartbreaking tragedy when family members died at young ages. Wild Bill Donovan reads like an action-packed spy thriller, with stories of daring young men and women in his OSS sneaking behind enemy lines for sabotage, breaking into Washington embassies to steal secrets, plotting to topple Adolf Hitler, and suffering brutal torture or death when they were captured by the Gestapo. It is also a tale of political intrigue, of infighting at the highest levels of government, of powerful men pitted against one another. Donovan fought enemies at home as often as the Axis abroad. Generals in the Pentagon plotted against him. J. Edgar Hoover had FBI agents dig up dirt on him. Donovan stole secrets from the Soviets before the dawn of the Cold War and had intense battles with Winston Churchill and British spy chiefs over foreign turf. Separating fact from fiction, Waller investigates the successes and the occasional spectacular failures of Donovan's intelligence career. It makes for a gripping and revealing portrait of this most controversial spymaster.
Download or read book Hank Greenberg The Story of My Life written by Hank Greenberg and published by Ivan R. Dee. This book was released on 2009-12-16 with total page 323 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Once in a great while there appears a baseball player who transcends the game and earns universal admiration from his fellow players, from fans, and from the American people. Such a man was Hank Greenberg, whose dynamic life and legendary career are among baseball's most inspiring stories. The Story of My Life tells the story of this extraordinary man in his own words, describing his childhood as the son of Eastern European immigrants in New York; his spectacular baseball career as one of the greatest home-run hitters of all time and later as a manager and owner; his heroic service in World War II; and his courageous struggle with cancer. Tall, handsome, and uncommonly good-natured, Greenberg was a secular Jew who, during a time of widespread religious bigotry in America, stood up for his beliefs. Throughout a lifetime of anti-Semitic abuse he maintained his dignity, becoming in the process a hero for Jews throughout America and the first Jewish ballplayer elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Download or read book A History of What Comes Next written by Sylvain Neuvel and published by Tordotcom. This book was released on 2021-02-02 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A History of What Comes Next is a riveting blend of historical thriller and scientific speculation, which never loses its core of humanity.”—James Rollins, #1 New York Times bestselling author For generations, Mia’s family has shaped human history to push them to the stars. The year is 1945 and now it is her turn. Her mission: to lure scientist Wernher Von Braun away from the Nazi party and into the American rocket program, securing the future of the space race. But there is a threat. A ruthless enemy lurks behind the scenes. Sylvain Neuvel’s genre-bending sci-fi thriller is a dark and gripping exploration of the amorality of progress and the nature of violence, as seen through the eyes of the women who make that progress possible and the men who are determined to stop them. Always run, never fight. Preserve the knowledge. Survive at all costs. Take them to the stars. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
Download or read book Collision Low Crossers written by Nicholas Dawidoff and published by Hachette+ORM. This book was released on 2013-11-19 with total page 475 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An unrivaled portrait of day-to-day life in the NFL: "Riveting . . . an instant classic" (New York Times Book Review). By spending a year with the New York Jets, Nicholas Dawidoff entered a mysterious and private world with its own rituals and language. Equal parts Paper Lion, Moneyball, Friday Night Lights, and The Office, this absorbing, funny, and vivid narrative gets to the heart of a massive and stressful collective endeavor. Here is football in many faces: the polarizing, brilliant, and hilarious head coach; the general manager, whose job is to support (and suppress) the irrepressible coach; the defensive coaches and their in-house rivals, the offensive coaches; and of course the players. Wise safeties, brooding linebackers, high-strung cornerbacks, enthusiastic rookies, and a well-read nose tackle: they make up a strange and complex family. Dawidoff makes an emblematic NFL season come alive for fans and nonfans alike in a book about football that will forever change the way people watch and think about the sport.
Download or read book The Fly Swatter written by Nicholas Dawidoff and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2003-05-13 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A reconstruction of Nicholas Dawidoff's grandfather, Alexander Gerschenkron-the Harvard professor who knew the most.
Download or read book The Second Oldest Profession written by Phillip Knightley and published by W. W. Norton. This book was released on 1980-01-01 with total page 468 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first full history of spies, spying, and the intelligence bureaucracy, from the author of The Philby Conspiracy.
Download or read book Historical Dictionary of United States Intelligence written by Michael A. Turner and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2014-10-08 with total page 423 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While the United States has had some kind of intelligence capability throughout its history, its intelligence apparatus is young, dating only to the period immediately after World War II. Yet, in that short a time, it has undergone enormous changes—from the labor-intensive espionage and covert action establishment of the 1950s to a modern enterprise that relies heavily on electronic data, technology, satellites, airborne collection platforms, and unmanned aerial vehicles, to name a few. This second edition covers the history of United States intelligence, and includes several key features: Chronology Introductory essay Appendixes Bibliography Over 600 cross-referenced entries on key events, issues, people, operations, laws, regulations This book is an excellent access point for members of the intelligence community; students, scholars, and historians; legal experts; and general readers wanting to know more about the history of U.S. intelligence.
Download or read book Moe Berg the Spy Behind Home Plate written by Vivian Grey and published by JPS Young Biography Series. This book was released on 1996 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Traces the life of a man who managed two successful careers, as a baseball player and a secret agent during World War II.