Reese Kaplan -- Moe Berg: A Better Spy Than Ballplayer

With relatives visiting this weekend I took a couple of days off from work and at one point it was with great anticipation we sat down to watch a movie I’d recorded on the DVR entitled, “The Catcher Was a Spy” about the exploits of former journeyman catcher Moe Berg.  I was peripherally familiar with Berg’s story – a catcher who was fluent in multiple languages who was subsequently recruited by the US government to become a World War II spy.

During his career Berg didn’t do much to distinguish himself during his 15 years mostly in the American League as a backup with a lifetime .245 AVG.  He actually entered baseball in 1923 as a shortstop against the Philiadelphia Phillies in the old Baker Bowl in 1923, playing  a handful of games well but only hitting .187.  He was sent to the minors and initially refused to report, considering what life would be like outside of baseball.  When he did, he hit quite well initially where they inserted him in at third base, but after a prolonged slump he was back on the bench. 

He shuffled around the minors for awhile, never doing another prolonged stretch during which a pro scout by the name of Mike Gonzalez offered up a succinct evaluation which has entered the lexicon of scouts everywhere when referring to Berg, “Good field, no hit.”

Eventually he had a good season playing for the Reading franchise and the White Sox   until playing for a White Sox affiliate where he finished the season with a .311 AVG with 124 RBIs.  By this point he’d already skipped a season to spend a year studying at the Sorbonne, then enrolled at Columbia Law School where he skipped his first Chicago spring training and lost his opportunity when the shortstop they hired to replace him took over his job.  He continued his studies at Columbia, missing a lot more time away from baseball, but a series of injuries to three catchers left the White Sox with nowhere else to turn and thus began Berg’s career as a catcher. 

Berg did pass the New York State Bar and completed his studies at Columbia.  He also took his new found role as catcher seriously, spending one winter working outdoors at an upstate New York lumberyard to arrive in his best ever condition.  It worked as he led the league in assists, double plays by a catcher and in the top echelon in all other defensive metrics.   A knee ligament injury derailed his career and he never resumed hitting well, though he continued a fine career as a receiver.

During 1932 he, Lefty O’Doul and Ted Lyons took a tour of Japan, teaching baseball skills all over the island nation.  They visited all of the major universities to demonstrate how professional baseball should be played.  Berg enjoyed his time there, learned the language and toured all over Asia and other parts of the world absorbing various foreign cultures and learning additional languages.

Berg was tapped for a barnstorming tour of Japan against an All Star team of local players.  This time his squad included folks like Babe Ruth, Earl Averill, Jimmie Foxx, Lefty Gomez and Charlie Gehringer.  While there he took movies with his own hand-held camera which provided the US intelligence agencies footage showing the city from a high vantage point atop a building. 

Nicknamed “Professor” due to his Ivy League background and his affinity for languages, Berg also made an appearance on a popular radio quiz show called, “Information, Please” which was kind of the forerunner to today’s Jeopardy.  He won handily until the host started asking too many personal questions which caused the fiercely private Berg never to return. 

In 1942 Berg began working in a variety of roles for the US government, first helping South American and Caribbean troops stay in condition for battle, but they soon realized with his skills he was being wasted in that capacity.  He subsequently joined the OSS (predecessor to the CIA) and was in charge of keeping track of activity in Yugoslavia and the Balkans during the war. 

He later was recruited for his ultimate mission, to confer with physicists all over Europe to ascertain whether or not the Germans had the skillset to build a nuclear bomb.  He was in fact given permission to assassinate Werner Heisenberg, head physicist if he was convinced the Germans were indeed ready.  (Most of us only know Heisenberg’s name as the alter ego of crystal meth kingpin Walter White in “Breaking Bad”).   For his efforts Berg was offered and refused the Medal of Freedom, the highest honor that could be given to a civilian by the US government. 

The movie based on his life was oddly cast with comedy star Paul Rudd in the lead role.  It was interesting to see someone tackle his life on film but the execution of the project was not very good.  Still, for anyone unfamiliar with this interesting side note related to a ballplayer, it might be worth a couple of hours of your time to see his life dramatized.  For people with more time perhaps you’d be better off reading one of the five books profiling his career as a catcher and as a spy.