Moe Berg: The Catcher Was a Spy

Casey Stengel once said that Moe Berg was the strangest man to ever play baseball. Berg was born in New York on March 2nd, 1902. His parents were Russian-Jewish immigrants. His father, Bernard Berg, was a druggist. He arrived from the Ukraine in 1894 and found work ironing in a laundry. Rose Tashker, arrived two years later when Bernard saved enough money. Bernard also put aside enough money to open his own laundry on the Lower East Side. But he had bigger ambitions, so he attended night school at the Columbia School of Pharmacy. By the time Moe was born, joining older siblings, Samuel and Ethel, Bernard was a pharmacist.

When Moe was 9 months old, the family moved to the Roseville section of Newark New Jersey where Bernard opened his own pharmacy. It was at the Roseville Methodist Episcopal Church that Moe played his first organized baseball. As he was Jewish, he invented a new name for himself, Runt Wolfe. His father worked for thirty years so his children could have a college education. Samuel became a medical doctor. Ethel a schoolteacher. The family felt Moe should become a lawyer, and so he did.

He went to Barringer High School and was an all-city third baseman with a rifle-arm. He graduated from Barringer at the tender age of sixteen. A year later he went to New York University. One year later, he transferred to Princeton. Most of the students at Princeton were from affluent Protestant families. Berg, Jewish and not affluent, hung around the periphery of that closed society, He was a loner, and perhaps that contributed to his mysterious ways later on. He studied classical and Romantic languages: Latin, French, Spanish and Italian. He also learned German and even Sanskrit.

Because he was Jewish, it caused some awkward moments at Princeton. One such moment occurred when a teammate was nominated for membership into a prestigious dining club essential to social life at Princeton. The teammate accepted on the condition that Berg would also become a member. The club agreed on the condition that Berg would not try to bring any more Jews into the club, Berg said no to this requirement. His teammate also declined to join. Berg, feeling responsible for his teammate’s refusal to join, talked him into joining. Left with a bad taste, Berg never attended any class reunions.

Moe Berg C White Sox

Baseball was a form of acceptance for Berg, and he started for the Princeton team for three years. He played first base, and then in his last year he was the star SS. That team was the best team Princeton ever had. They won 18 straight games and handing Holy Cross’s star pitcher, Ownie Carroll, one of his two losses as a college pitcher. (Carroll would go on to pitch 9 years in the majors, his last two, 33-34 with the Brooklyn Dodgers.) Berg graduated with honors in 1923, 24th in a class of 211.

After graduation, Berg signed with the Brooklyn Robins. He also entered the Columbia Law School, eventually receiving his law degree in 1930. He met Dutch Carter, and eminent lawyer who advised him to keep playing professional baseball. Carter had wanted a baseball career himself, but his family persuaded him to pursue the law and he always regretted it. “There is plenty of time for you to practice law after your baseball career is over.” He told Berg. Berg followed his advice and also turned down a position at Princeton to teach Romantic languages.

Berg debuted with Brooklyn in 1923, but he was awful. He hit .186 in 49 games. he was sent to the minors and would not make it back to the majors until 1926 when he was with the White Sox. After the 23 season, Berg traveled to Paris. He took an apartment in the Latin Quarter that overlooked the Sorbonne where he enrolled in 32 classes. He also developed a habit that would stay with him most of his life. He began reading as many newspapers a day as possible. As long as he was reading it, he considered the paper alive and refused to let anyone read it. After he finished, the paper was dead and anyone could read it.

In January of 1924, instead of returning to New York and getting ready for the baseball season, he traveled to Italy and Switzerland. When he got to the training facility for the Robins, Wilbert Robinson, the Brooklyn skipper, could see that his hitting had not improved any and optioned him to the Minneapolis Millers. Berg did not take the demotion well and threatened to quit baseball. But in mid-April he reported to the Millers. He became their regular third baseman and did pretty well, hitting close to .300. But in July, his average plummeted, and he was back on the bench.

In August of 24 he was loaned to the Toledo Mud Hens. He was inserted to the lineup when their starting SS declined to pay a fine for poor play and was suspended. Major League scout, Mike Gonzalez sent a telegram to the Robins on his progress with the now famous line, good field, no hit. Berg finished the year with a .264 average.

By April 1925, Berg was beginning to show progress with the Reading Keystones of the International League. Because of his .311 average and driving in 124 runs, the White Sox exercised their option with Reading and paid 6,000 dollars for his services. They brought him up the next year.

Berg became a catcher by accident, or a string of unusual circumstances. But that came later. Before the 1926 season began, Berg informed the White Sox that he was going to miss the first two months of the season while he finished his studies at Columbia. So, he did not even report to the Sox until late in the year and only got into 41 games. In 1927, he told the Sox the same thing. Even though the owner offered him more money to report, he stayed in school. Same thing as 26, he spent a lot of time on the bench.

Then in August, Ray Schalk, then the manager and reserve catcher was out with a broken thumb. Buck Crouse was also injured. Then Harry McCurdy had his hand slashed by a Red Sox hitter in Boston. Schalk was in a panic. He looked up and down the bench and asked if anyone thought they could play catcher. Berg said he used to think he could. Schalk asked who thought you couldn’t? Berg said, my college coach. Schalk handed him the mask and said, go prove your coach wrong. So, Berg adorned the tools of ignorance.

He did a good job, but Schalk arranged for former catcher, Frank Bruggy to meet the team at their next game against the Yankees. Bruggy was so fat and out of shape that the starting pitcher, Ted Lyons, refused to pitch to him. When Schalk asked him who he wanted, he said Berg.

Moe Berg

Berg with the help of a professor at the university, got a leave of absence from school for the spring semester so he could report to spring training. He would take extra classes in the winter. The winter Berg went to work at a lumber camp in the Adirondack mountains in New York for about three weeks before reporting to the White Sox training camp in Shreveport Louisiana. The labor did wonders for him. He reported in excellent shape and eventually won the starting catcher’s job. He caught 60 percent of the runners trying to steal on him and for the year he hit .246 with 16 doubles. He had no homers. He would only hit six in his entire 15-year career.

At law school, Berg failed Evidence and did not graduate with his 1929 class, but he passed the New York Bar exam. The next year he passed Evidence and received his LL. B on February 26th, 1930. He had his best year ever in the majors in 1929, hitting .287 and driving in 47 runs. It was also the only season in his entire career that he would play in 100 games or more.

In April of 1930, during an exhibition game in Little Rock, his spikes caught, and he tore a ligament in his knee. He was back in the lineup by May, but he could not play every day due to the knee. He played in only 20 games and hit .115. The Indians picked him up over the winter, but he was even worse in Cleveland playing in only 10 games in 1931 and batting a paltry .077.

He was released again, but with catchers being in short supply, Calvin Griffith invited him to Biloxi for a tryout with the Senators. He made the team and played flawless defense. When the starting catcher, Roy Spencer went down with an injury, Berg stepped in, throwing out 35 runners and batting .236.

It was now that Berg’s life begins to get more interesting. He had taken a job in the winter of 1930 with the New York law firm of Satterlee and Canfield. By the way, this law firm still exists today as Satterlee, , Stephens, Burke, and Burke. A retired ball player, Herb Hunter, arranged for three players, Berg, Lefty O’Doul and Ted Lyons to do baseball seminars at Japanese university’s. It was Berg’s first trip to the Orient.

After their tour of universities, Lyons and O’Doul returned to the states. Berg stayed behind and toured Japan, Manchuria, Shanghai, Indochina, Siam, India, Egypt and Berlin, Germany. Although he wanted to return to Japan, he headed back to the states for spring training.

Berg had a very disappointing season in 1933, batting just .185 and playing in only 40 games. The Senators won the pennant but lost the World Series to the Giants. The starting catcher, Cliff Bolton, demanded more money in 34. But the Senators refused, he sat out, and Berg got the starting job. That lasted all of 33 games and the Senators released him. But Cleveland’s backup catcher went down with an injury and Walter Johnson, who had managed Berg in DC offered him the job. Berg would play in 29 games for the Tribe and hit .256.

After the season, Hunter once again arranged for some MLB stars to tour Japan and play exhibitions against a Japanese all-star team. The group included, Ruth, Gehrig, Averill, Foxx, Gehringer, and Lefty Gomez. At the last minute, Berg, a light hitting second stringer was added to the team.

Berg had contracted Movietone News, a newsreel production company, to make a film of sights from his trip. He took a 16mm Bell and Howell camera and a letter from the company to attest to this. When the team arrived in Japan, Berg, who was fluent in several languages, some say 12 to 14, gave a welcome speech in Japanese. He was also invited to address the legislature.

On November 29th, while the rest of the team was playing a game in Omiya, Berg went to Saint Lukes Hospital in Tsukiji. Ostensibly to visit Ambassador Joseph Drew’s daughter. When Berg arrived, he immediately went to the roof of the hospital, which was one of the tallest buildings in Tokyo, and filmed the city and the port. In 1942, Berg turned those photos over to American intelligence in case they were needed for a raid. He never did visit the ambassador’s daughter, and after the rest of the team left, he stayed behind and toured the Philippines, Korea, and Moskow Russia. While in Japan, the Indians notified him of his release.

Berg and his Bell and Howell 16mm

In 1935, Berg latched on with the Boston Red Sox. He would spend 5 years with the team and never play more than 30 games. In 1939, Berg appeared on the radio quiz show, “Information Please.” Berg had a dazzling performance. He would appear on the show 3 times, and commissioner, Mountain Landis, said Berg did more for baseball in 30 minutes than he had in all his time as commissioner. On his third appearance, Clifton Fadiman, the moderator, started asking what Berg thought were too many personal questions. He did not answer them and never appeared on the show again. Regular show guest, John Kiernan, who was also a sportswriter, said Berg was the most scholarly professional athlete he ever knew.

With his playing career over, Berg worked as a coach for the Red Sox and wrote and essay that was published in the September 1941 issue of The Atlantic Monthly, entitled, Pitchers and Catchers. He coached the Sox for two years.

With the attack on Pearl Harbor, Berg decided to do his part and went to work for Gov. Rockefellers, Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs. OIAA. His father passed away on the 14th of January, 1942. Later that summer, he screened his footage of Tokyo for the intelligence community of the US Military. It was once thought that his movies helped in the Doolittle raid, but that happened in April.

Berg Collage

From August 1942 to February1943, Berg was on assignment to South America, their job was to monitor the health and physical fitness of American troops stationed there. In June of 43, Berg and several other OIAA agents left because they though South America posed little threat to the US.

On August 2nd, 1943, Berg went to work for the OSS. Today’s CIA. He was assigned to the Special Operations branch. He was making 3800 dollars a year. He was the paramilitary operations officer. That branch today is the CIA’s Special Activities Division. In September, he was assigned to the Secret Intelligence Branch and given a spot on the OSS SI Balkans desk. He helped Slavic-Americans recruited to make dangerous drops into Yugoslavia.

In late 43 he was assigned to Project Larson. The stated purpose of the project was to kidnap Italian rocket and missile specialists in Italy and bring them to the US. Another part of the project was called AZUSA. That project was intended to interview Italian physicists to see what they knew about Werner Heisenberg and Carl Frederich von Weizsäcker. It was similar to in scope and mission to the Alsos Project.

Berg was sent overseas and from May to December in 1944, he hopped around Europe, interviewing physicists and trying to convince them to leave Europe and go to the United States. In December, news was received that Heisenberg was giving a lecture in Zurich. Berg was sent there with orders to kill Heisenberg if he felt anything he said convinced him that the Nazi’s were close to building the bomb. Berg determined they were not close. On direct orders from President Roosevelt, Berg convinced Antonio Ferri, who had been the head of the supersonic research team in Italy, to come to the United States and take part in the supersonic program there. When Berg returned with Ferri, Roosevelt commented ” I see Moe Berg is still catching very well. While in Switzerland, Berg became a close friend of physicist, Paul Scherrer. He resigned from the OSS in January of 1946.

One of his duties while he was on the Balkan desk, was to decide which partisan group the OSS and US would support. He chose the group led by Josef Broz (Tito). Who would later become the leader of Yugoslavia and a staunch supporter of communism.

IN 1951, Berg begged the CIA to send him to the new state of Israel. A Jew must do this he wrote in his notebook. The CIA turned him down. But in 1952, the CIA paid him to use his old contacts from WWII to gather information about the Soviets atomic bomb project. For their 10,000-dollar investment, the CIA got nothing. The CIA officer who spoke with Berg when he returned said Berg was flaky.

For the next 20 years, Berg had no real job. He lived with friends and relatives who put up with him because of his charisma. When someone would ask him what he did for a living, he would put his finger to his lips, giving them the impression that he was still a spy. A lifelong bachelor, he lived with his brother Samuel for 17 years. According to Samuel, Berg became snappish and moody after the war. He did not care for much in life except his books. Samuel eventually became fed up and asked Moe to leave. But he actually had to get an eviction notice to get him out of the house.

Berg moved in with his sister, Ethel, and lived there for the rest of his life. He received a handful of votes for the Hall of Fame, 4 in 58, and 5 in 1960. When criticized for wasting his intellectual talent on the sport he loved, he replied, I’d rather be a ballplayer than a justice on the Supreme Court.” He was asked many times to write his memoirs, and almost did so in 1960, but he quit when the co-writer assigned to him confused him with Moe Howard of the Three Stooges.

Moe died on May 29th, 1972, at the age of 70 from injuries sustained in a fall at home. A nurse said his final words were, ” how did the Mets do today?’ They won. By his request, he was cremated, and his ashes spread on Mount Scopus in Jerusalem. Moe received the Medal of Freedom from President Harry Truman after the war but declined to accept it without an explanation. After his death, his sister requested and received the medal. She donated it to the baseball hall of fame.

In 1996, he was inducted into the National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame. In 2000, he was inducted into the Baseball Reliquary’s Shrine of Eternals. Bergs’ baseball card is the only one on display at the CIA’s headquarters in Langley Virginia.

Moe Berg was a highly intelligent man. He was also an enigma to many. He would disappear, and no one would know where he was. It might have been because he was virtually invisible to those with whom he attended college. For whatever reason, he was a very private person. But he also had a sense of humor. He once told a fellow player that he was suffering from a lack of intestinal fortitude. The next day when he was feeling better, the player told the press he was over his bout with a lack of intestinal fortitude. But he got the last laugh on Berg, he told him, Moe, I can drive in more runs in a month than you smart guys can think across the plate all season.

Yes, Berg was one of a kind. Probably one of the most interesting men who ever played the game.

Berg’s Medal of Freedom

Berg in Japan

Moe Berg