Playing with the Enemy

Hardcover and Signed books are available at the Sesser Library for $25 while supplies last!

Go to his website for information  www.playingwiththeenemy.com

Gary A. Moore's book about his father, a baseball prodigy from Sesser, debuts nationwide in bookstores in September, and a movie is already in the works.

The details of the movie deal was been released at the Museum of Science and Industry's U505 exhibit. According to Variety, producer Gerald R. Molen, through his WhiteLight Entertainment banner, has picked up the rights to Moore's sports drama novel and shooting is set to start in February.

"I am insisting that it be filmed in Sesser, but I do not have the final word," Moore told the Flipside.

The book, "Playing With the Enemy: A Baseball Prodigy, a World at War, and a Field of Broken Dreams," opens in 1939 with 15-year-old catcher Gene Moore attracting the attention of Major League recruiters. Moore opted to fight in World War II, where he eventually guarded the captured soldiers of the German submarine, the U505, and taught them to play baseball. "The story is really important for people who place everything in their dreams," Gary Moore told The Southern in a June 2005 article about the book he was writing then.

"It's important to dream, but with the understanding that things don't always work out the way we want them to. Sometimes we have to change our dreams."

"Playing with the Enemy" will be available at 260 Barnes & Noble, and it was named the Military Writers Society of America 2006 Book of the Year.

Moore said advanced copies have garnered an "overwhelming amount of calls and emails."

"People are telling me their personal stories about their fathers and baseball, some of which are very, very touching and quite emotional," Moore said. "I don't know how well this book will do. I do hope it is a benefit and a blessing to Sesser and Franklin County."

To learn more about the author and the book, go to www.playingwiththeenemy.com .

— Marleen Shepherd  from the Flipside Southern Illinoisian

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