Boom! This is Books & Biceps #396!

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The Catcher Was a Spy: The Mysterious Life of Moe Berg by Nicholas Dawidoff

I love when awesome books just fall into my life. Especially when they’re based on real people. And even more especially when somehow I had never heard of the story at all.

In this case, my best friend’s parents, who are basically family and my second set of parents (shoutout Mr. & Mrs. C!) gave my son The Catcher Was a Spy as a gift for his 13th birthday. He’s kinda into reading, kinda not. If you have a teenager, you know. Despite having read to him every night his entire grade school life and despite talking about building the habit of reading for 15-20 minutes before bed and despite have ME as a dad and a thousand books laying around the house… Well… My boy reads sometimes. The book has to be right in his wheelhouse.

With that in mind, Catcher combines baseball, spy stuff, adventure, World War II and generally things that when put together a 13-year-old boy would read about.

The book sat on the kitchen table for a few days. Then an end table. Then the coffee table. He said he’d start it “soon”… And eventually I picked it up to bring to his room and while I started walking, I flipped through the first few pages. Then the next few. Then I sat at his desk and read about thirty pages. Now I’m about 60 pages in and I love it.

The book chronicles the life of Moe Berg, one of the most fascinating men you’ll ever read about. Here are a few highlights:

Berg played for the White Sox, Red Sox, Indians and Washington Senators on and off as a back-up catcher over thirteen seasons between 1923 and 1939. He finished his career with 6 home runs, 206 RBIs and 441 hits. And here’s where it gets interesting. This dude was also fluent in German, Japanese, Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese and a half-dozen other languages, including English, obviously. He also earned a law degree from Columbia during a few off-seasons and worked on Wall Street.

And while ALL of that is impressive, you ain’t heard nothing yet. Berg became a spy for the Office for Strategic Services (a precursor to the CIA) to gather intel on the German nuclear program. Yes, the guy who played back-up catcher at Fenway was also sent to Berlin to spy on Hitler and his nuclear development program.

Interested? I was too. I still can’t believe I never heard of this guy before seeing this book, but I’m glad I did. If you’re into baseball, WWII, espionage and fascinating historical figures, this one is for you. Get it here.

In my never-ending quest to figure out a hybrid training split that includes the following: swimming 3-4 days a week, lifting 2-3 days a week, doing back, knee, hip and shoulder mobility work 2-3 days a week, run sprints 1-day a week and hoops on Fridays, I have made another tweak to my schedule…

I wrote at the end of the summer that I was going to try a 10-day split, which I did, and pretty much lost track of every week, haha. It’s too confusing. Too stretched out. Doesn’t align with my work week or kids activities, games, coaching, etc... So I scrapped that.

Here is where I’ve landed now and it’s been two weeks and it’s the most “manageable” I’ve had so far.

Monday: AM Upper Body Lift Heavy / PM Swim Practice

Tuesday: Legs Heavy - mobility/flexibility

Wednesday: AM Long Walk / PM Swim Practice

Thursday: Full Body (all body weight, medium reps) mobility/flexibility legs

Friday: Hoops

Saturday: 5K as sprints (1 minute run / 1 minute walk) / Arm Circuit OR Swim OR Rest

Sunday: AM Distance Swim Practice

And there you have it. Only one double session. Wednesday as a recovery day and evening swim and Saturday as the optional OFF day or pick one of three things.

So far this feels right. My new rule is that if I start to feel worn down, I skip the NEXT day. I did that this Tuesday and it was great. I took a long, thirty minute walk in the morning and then another at sunset with my daughter and caught this awesome photo:

If you’re a guy over 40 and you’ve been looking for a new digital magazine that’s written for midlife men, by midlife men, on the topics that actually matter to us: family, fitness, fashion, finance, food & fun, then join us at Midlife Male.

I write a column every Tuesday called The Manologue. This week, I wrote about what I’m calling the Michael Jordan Media Renaissance. Thanks to three-straight wins from 23XI Racing to start the 2026 NASCAR season, including the Daytona 500, Jordan is back in the sports headlines and there’s a lesson in there for all of us…

You just need to watch one live trackside interview with the 63-year-old MJ after one of these big racing Ws and you’ll see what I mean. But first, let me walk you through how we can all, once again, dream we groove and dream we move, like Mike:

During the two years I spent researching and writing my Macho Man Randy Savage biography, I thought I’d seen every single finishing move in wrestling.

But yesterday I saw a finishing move I’d never seen before. One so powerful, so unique and creative, that all I can do is share it with you. I’m calling it, the TK Dough. Enjoy:

The ‘Read More, Lift More’ 30-Day Brain & Body Endurance Challenge

The Flex Factory Garage Gym Muscle Manual: 90 Days to Meathead Nirvana

All you have to do pre-order today and send me a screen shot with your name. Then you’ll etch your name in the hardcover copy forever!

Jon Finkel is the award-winning author of Macho Man: The Untamed, Unbelievable Life of Randy Savage, 1996: A Biography, Hoops Heist, The Life of Dad, Jocks In Chief, The Athlete, Heart Over Height, “Mean” Joe Greene and more. His books have been endorsed by everyone from Mark Cuban, John Cena and Tony Dungy to Spike Lee, Kevin Durant and Chef Robert Irvine. He has written for GQ, Men’s Health, Yahoo! Sports, The New York Times and has appeared on CBS: This Morning, Good Morning Texas, Good Morning Chicago, and hundreds of radio shows, podcasts and streams. Jon was recently profiled in The New Yorker about the awesome community he’s built around his Books & Biceps newsletter. They describe him as “a gym rat’s Reese Witherspoon”. Reply to this email for any media requests.

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