Gene Moore was a fifteen-year-old farm boy living with his family in Sesser, Illinois, a town so small that you couldn't even find it on a map. Even though the country had suffered through the Great Depression, and the coal mine just wasn't producing much anymore, Sesser did have a town baseball team called the Sesser Egyptians for whome Gene played when he wasn't helping out on the farm. Gene was the best catcher anyone had ever seen; he could throw men out from any position, not a ball ever got past him, and he could hit the ball farther than anyone else. He had a talent for controlling the game and even the older men followed his lead without question. When you are that good, word gets around, and the Brooklyn Dodgers sent a scout to take a look at Gene.  

He was headed for the Majors with the Brooklyn Dodgers when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour, and he decided instead to do his duty and join the Navy at seventeen years old.   Gene was sent to play ball with a Navy team to entertain the troops in the Azores and North Africa.  Then he and the other team members were sent on a special, top-secret mission to guard a group of German submarine sailors from the captured U-505 in Louisiana.  Since there weren't enough guys to make up a game, Gene convinced his commander to allow him to teach the enemy how to play baseball while he and his teammates waited for the war to end so they could be called up into the Major Leagues.  Unfortunately, his destiny took another drastic change during the last game.  

While Warren Eugene Moore never did achieve his dream of playing in the Majors, his son just may have catapaulted him into immortality with this passionate biography... a riviting story about a remarkable man that may soon be made into a major motion picture with Gene's grandson playing the lead.  Gene had never talked about his possible career in baseball to his family; but finally, just before his death, he spent many hours talking to his son, Gary Moore, and revealing his unprecedented life story. Through extensive research, and talking to dozens of people who knew his father, Gary was able to flesh out the story and give us this compelling and sometimes heart-wrenching tale.  

Playing With the Enemy is undoubtedly the best book I have read this year... I simply could not put it down.