TOW #4 - The Catcher Was a Spy (IRB)

The book The Catcher Was a Spy, is a story about a boy named Moe Berg. His parents came over from Ireland back in the 19th century, where they established a new life in Newark, NJ. Throughout the first half of the book, author Nicholas Dawidoff takes us on a journey throughout Moe's adolescents, all the way to the beginning of his baseball career. His message to the audience is that Moe Berg was not your typical stud baseball player who would chew tobacco, and smoke cigars at the time. He was one of the brightest men the game had ever seen, and could be respected just for his intelligence, let alone his baseball skills. Now Dawidoff isn't just some no name writer, who decided that the life of Moe Berg was a good idea to try and make some money; he was a legit author, who has won many awards for his work, including a Pulitzer Prize for his memoir The Fly Swatter. Dawidoff goes on to deliver his purpose through a plethora of rhetorical devices. Two of the main devices in the first half of the book are positive diction to describe the brilliance of Moe Berg, and the next one is establishing ethos for Moe Berg. To start off the biography, Dawidoff immidiately uses postive diction when he displays the nickname "Professor Berg". He then follows it up when he describes a conversation that one of his friends had with Berg; "Schacht is awed by the Berg presence" (Location 141)*. Later, Dawidoff continues with establishing the idea that Berg is a brilliant man by creating credibility for Moe. He stated, “Berg exits carrying a bale of newspapers under his arm, foreign and domestic… he greets him in Japanese," (Location 184)*. This quote emphasizes that Berg speaks fluently in more than one language, and that he is also an avid reader. These are two signs that immediately point to someone being knowledgeable and intelligent. Through the use of devices such as positive diction, and creating ethos for the main character, Moe Berg, Dawidoff effectively illustrates his purpose, which is that Moe was more than just a star baseball player from New Jersey. 


*Reading on a Kindle, so not sure about page number, just location