The Catcher Was a Spy (2018)
Third Thursday Movie Discussion
Thursday, November 17, 10:00 am
Hosted by RiverWest Village
Moe Berg, a 15-year baseball veteran, joins the war effort as a spy to beat Nazi Germany in the race to build the first atomic bomb.
In 1936, Berg is playing for the Boston Red Sox near the end of a long if undistinguished pro career. On a goodwill baseball exhibition tour of Japan, Berg sneaks onto the roof of a Tokyo hospital to covertly film Tokyo's harbor and Navy shipyards.
The Office of Strategic Services Chief to whom he presents the film is impressed by Berg’s enterprise, as well as the extensive language skills that Berg has picked up at Princeton and elsewhere, and Berg is hired. Werner Heisenberg, who won the Nobel Prize in 1932 for pioneering quantum physics, is now in charge of the Nazis’ attempts to create an atom bomb. If he succeeds, the Germans could win the war.
Berg is smuggled into Italy and then Switzerland, with the task to discover if Heisenberg is anywhere near that goal. If so, it will fall to Berg to assassinate the brilliant physicist.
Casey Stengel once described Berg as "the strangest man ever to play baseball."
His is the only baseball card on display at the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency.
Watch on Kanopy ahead of time and bring your thoughts and reflections to the discussion. Kanopy is free with your library card.
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89016059225?pwd=bmhESjN0N3NhRUE3MXuesJWSWpVQ0Nrdz09
Meeting ID: 890 1605 9225
Passcode: 486547
Attend by Phone: 253-215-8782