THE STRANGE STORY OF MOE BERG, BALLPLAYER AND SPY

Morris "Moe" Berg (1902-1972) was a Major League ballplayer who had probably the most interesting backstory of any professional athlete.  He was a fine defensive catcher who spent 15 years in the bigs with Brooklyn, Washington, Cleveland, the Chicago White Sox and the Boston Red Sox.  For quite a few years, he even held the record for catchers for most consecutive games without making an error.

Berg earned a B.A. degree, cum laude, in modern languages from Princeton, and a law degree from Columbia.  He even studied at the Sorbonne in Paris.  He spoke at least 12 languages, and as his teammate, pitcher Ted Lyons once said, "He couldn't hit in any of them!"  His lifetime batting average was only .243 with 6 home runs.  His language repertoire included English, Latin, Greek, French, Spanish, Italian, German, Japanese, Russian, Serbo-Croatian, Yiddish, and even Ancient Sanskrit.

Each day, he read 10 newspapers from cover to cover.  In those days most ballplayers, if they read anything at all, read comic books.  Berg was in a league by himself.  Other than baseball, he had little in common with his teammates.  He was a lifelong bachelor and an introvert.  None of his teammates knew him well.  Recent biographers suggest that he may have been gay, but his teammates dispute that.  He was often seen in the company of attractive women.

In college, Berg starred in baseball, playing shortstop and third base.   He was scouted by the New York teams because in their markets, they could sell more tickets with a Jewish ballplayer.  He signed his first contract with the Brooklyn Robins (later the Dodgers). 

At that time, it was common for players in the off season to travel the world, barnstorming and teaching baseball to the locals in foreign countries.  Before the 1970's ballplayers didn't make that much money so they held regular jobs in the winter to make ends meet.  After the 1934 season, Berg traveled to Japan with an all-star team which included Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and a few other Hall of Famers to conduct baseball clinics and show off their skills.  Although significantly less talented than the other players, Berg was chosen to fill out the team because he could speak Japanese.   Upon arrival, he gave a speech in Japanese and was invited to address the Legislature. 

At that time, Japan was a rising power in the world, potentially hostile to the U.S., and we didn't know much about that country.  Berg had contracted with a newsreel company to look around and take a lot of pictures.  In Tokyo, he visited St. Luke's International Hospital which was the tallest building in the city, ostensibly to visit the daughter of the American ambassador who had just given birth.

Berg entered the building wearing a men's kimono, carrying a bouquet of flowers.  He went up to the roof of the building, dumped the flowers, pulled a 16mm Bell & Howell movie camera out of his kimono and filmed panoramic pictures of the city.  The Japanese government had expressly forbidden the Americans from taking photographs.   He never did see the ambassador's daughter.

The pictures made their way to Washington where they were helpful several years later in identifying targets for bombing raids during World War II.  Google Maps were still a long time in the future. 

During World War II, after Berg's baseball career was over, he was recruited into the Office of Strategic Services (forerunner of the CIA) to do intelligence work.  He never talked about his spying with anyone, even years later.  In fact, he never talked much about anything.

Historians have been able to glean, from other sources, several of his wartime exploits. For example, in 1944 he traveled to Zurich, Switzerland, posing as a student, for a conference at which the Head of the German nuclear program, the brilliant Werner Heisenberg, would be lecturing.   Berg's orders were to talk to Heisenberg, and try to determine Germany's progress in building an atomic bomb.  If he deemed Germany was close, he was ordered to assassinate Heisenberg.   After a dinner party, Berg took a stroll with Heisenberg and discerned that the Germans were not close to producing the bomb.  The Nazi scientist was despondent that Germany was going to lose the war.   Berg left him alone and delivered critical information to the Allied intelligence community. 

On another occasion, Berg was dropped into German occupied Italy to locate Antonio Ferri, a prominent aerodynamics engineer who was privy to German nuclear secrets.  Ferri had gone into hiding, but Berg was able to find him and ferry him out of Italy to the Allied side.  Berg of course spoke Italian, and was able to translate critical documents for our side.

He parachuted into occupied Yugoslavia to evaluate the various resistance groups battling the Nazis to determine which ones should receive aid.  He determined the strongest group was the one led by Josef Broz (Tito) who ultimately ruled the country for many years.

In later years Berg was badgered by publishers to write his memoirs.  They sent over a co-writer to interview him.  Berg quit the project,  and the writer left disappointed.  Berg didn't take it well when he figured out the man thought he was interviewing Moe (Howard) of the Three Stooges.

During his baseball career an interviewer questioned whether he was wasting his talents on baseball.  Berg's reply was that he'd rather be a ballplayer than a Supreme Court justice. 

President Truman invited Berg to the White House to present him the Medal of Freedom.  He turned it down.  After Berg's death, his sister Ethel requested and accepted the award.  She donated it to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

After he retired from government service, Berg lived the last 20 years of his life, unemployed, with his family.  First he lived for many years with his brother, Samuel, a physician, until his brother evicted him.  He then lived with his sister until his death.  He died in 1972 after a fall in the home.  At the hospital, his last words were "How'd the Mets do today?" (They won.)     The never-told story of his secret life in government service died with him.