Moe Berg
Encyclopedia
Morris "Moe" Berg was an American catcher
and coach
in Major League Baseball
who later served as a spy for the Office of Strategic Services
during World War II
. Although he played 15 seasons in the major leagues, almost entirely for four American League
teams, Berg was never more than an average player, usually used as a backup catcher, and was better known for being "the brainiest guy in baseball" than for anything he accomplished in the game. Casey Stengel
once described Berg as "the strangest man ever to play baseball".
A graduate of Princeton University
and Columbia Law School
, Berg spoke several languages and regularly read 10 newspapers a day. His reputation was fueled by his successful appearances as a contestant on the radio quiz show
Information, Please! in which he answered questions about the derivation
of words and names from Greek
and Latin
, historical events in Europe and the Far East
, and ongoing international conferences.
As a spy working for the government of the United States, Berg traveled to Yugoslavia
to gather intelligence on resistance groups the U.S. government
was considering supporting. He was then sent on a mission to Italy, where he interviewed various physicists concerning the German
nuclear program
. After the war, Berg was occasionally employed by the OSS's
successor, the Central Intelligence Agency
, but, by the mid-1950s, was unemployed. He spent the last two decades of his life without work, living with various siblings.
section of New York City, New York, a few blocks from the Polo Grounds
. When Berg was three and a half, he begged his mother to let him start school. In 1906, Bernard Berg bought a pharmacy in West Newark
. In 1910 the Berg family moved again, to the Roseville
section of Newark. Roseville offered Bernard Berg everything he wanted in a neighborhood—good schools, middle-class residents, and very few Jews.
Berg began playing baseball at the age of seven for the Roseville Methodist Episcopal Church
baseball
team under the less ethnic pseudonym Runt Wolfe. In 1918, at the age of 16, Berg graduated from Barringer High School
. During his senior season, the Newark Star-Eagle selected a nine-man "dream team" for from the city's best prep and public high school baseball players, and Berg was named the team's third baseman
. Barringer was the first in a series of institutions Berg joined in his life where his religion made him unusual. Most of the other students were East Side Italian Catholics or Protestants from Forest Hill
, but there were not many Jews, just as Bernard wanted it.
After graduating from Barringer, Berg enrolled in New York University
. He spent two semesters there and played baseball and basketball
. In 1919 he transferred to Princeton University
, and never again mentioned that he attended NYU for a year, presenting himself exclusively as a Princeton man. Berg received a B.A.
, magna cum laude
in modern language
s. He had studied seven languages: Latin
, Greek
, French, Spanish, Italian, German and Sanskrit. His Jewish heritage and modest finances combined to keep him on the fringes of Princeton society, where he never quite fit in.
During his freshman year, Berg played first base
on an undefeated team. Beginning in his sophomore year, he was the starting shortstop
. He was not a great hitter and was a slow baserunner, but he had a strong, accurate throwing arm and sound baseball instincts. In his senior season, he was captain of the team and had a .337 batting average
, batting .611 against Princeton's arch-rivals, Harvard
and Yale
. Crossan Cooper, Princeton's second baseman
, and Berg communicated plays in Latin when there was a man on second base.
On June 26, 1923, Yale defeated Princeton 5–1 at Yankee Stadium to win the Big Three
title. Berg had an outstanding day, getting two hits
in four at bat
s (2–4) with a single
and a double
, and making several marvelous plays at shortstop. Both the New York Giants
and the Brooklyn Robins
desired "Jewish blood" on their teams, to appeal to the large Jewish community in New York, and expressed interest in Berg. The Giants were especially interested, but they already had two future Hall of Famers at shortstop, Dave "Beauty" Bancroft
and Travis Jackson
. The Robins were a mediocre team, where Berg would have a better chance to play. On June 27, 1923, Berg signed his first big league contract for $5,000 ($ today) with the Robins.
at the Baker Bowl
. Berg came in at the start of the seventh inning, replacing Dutch Ruether
, when the Robins were winning 13–4. Berg handled five chances
without an error
and caught a line drive to start a game-ending double play
. He made a hit in his only at bat, getting a single up the middle against Clarence Mitchell
, and scoring a run
. For the season, Berg batted .187 and made 21 errors in 47 games, his only National League
experience.
After the season ended, Berg took his first trip abroad, sailing from New York to Paris. He settled in the Latin Quarter
in an apartment that overlooked the Sorbonne
, where he enrolled in 32 different classes. In Paris he developed a habit he kept for the rest of his life: reading several newspapers daily. Until Berg finished reading a paper, he considered it "alive" and refused to let anyone else touch it. When he was finished with it, he would consider the paper "dead" and anybody could read it. In January 1924, instead of heading back to New York and getting himself into shape for the upcoming baseball season, Berg toured Italy and Switzerland.
During spring training
at the Robins facility in Clearwater, Florida
, manager Wilbert Robinson
could see that Berg's hitting had not improved, and optioned him to the Minneapolis Millers
of the American Association
. Berg did not take the demotion well and threatened to quit baseball, but by mid-April he reported to the Millers. Berg did very well once he became the Millers' regular third baseman, hitting close to .330, but in July his average plummeted and he was back on the bench. On August 19, 1924 Berg was loaned to the Toledo Mud Hens
, a poor team ravaged by injuries. Berg was immediately inserted into the lineup at shortstop when Rabbit Helgeth refused to pay a $10 ($ today) fine for poor play and was suspended. Major league scout Mike Gonzalez sent a telegram to the Dodgers evaluating Berg with the curt, but now famous, line, "Good field, no hit." Berg finished the season with a .264 average.
By April 1925, he was starting to show promise as a hitter with the Reading Keystones of the International League
. Because of his .311 batting average and 124 runs batted in
, the Chicago White Sox
exercised their option they had with Reading, paying $6,000 ($ today) for him, and moved Berg up to the big leagues the following year.
, and Berg did not join the White Sox until May 28. Bill Hunnefield was signed by the White Sox to take Berg's place at shortstop, and was having a very good year, batting over .300. Berg played in only 41 games, batting .221.
Berg returned to Columbia after the season to continue working on his law degree. Despite White Sox owner Charles Comiskey
offering him more money to come to spring training, Berg declined, and informed the White Sox that he would be reporting late for the 1927 season. Noel Dowling, a professor to whom Berg explained his situation, told Berg to take extra classes in the fall, and said that he would arrange with the dean a leave of absence from law school the following year, 1928.
Because he reported late, Berg spent the first three months of the season on the bench. In August, a series of injuries to catchers Ray Schalk
, Harry McCurdy
and Buck Crouse
left the White Sox in need of somebody to play the position. Schalk, the White Sox player/manager, selected Berg, who did a fine job filling in. Schalk arranged for former Philadelphia Phillies catcher Frank Bruggy
to meet the team at their next game, against the New York Yankees
. Bruggy was so fat that pitcher Ted Lyons refused to pitch to him. When Schalk asked him who he wanted to catch, Lyons selected Berg.
In Berg's debut as a starting catcher, he had to worry not only about catching Lyons's knuckleball
, but also about facing the Yankees' Murderers' Row
lineup, which included Babe Ruth
, Lou Gehrig
and Earle Combs
. Lyons beat the Yankees 6–3, holding Ruth hitless. Berg made the defensive play of the game when he caught a poor throw from the outfield, spun and tagged out Joe Dugan
at the plate. Berg caught eight more times during the final month and a half of the season.
To prepare for the 1928 season, Berg traveled to a lumber camp in New York's Adirondack Mountains
three weeks prior to reporting to the White Sox spring training facility in Shreveport, Louisiana
. The hard labor did wonders for him, as he reported to spring training on March 2, 1928 in excellent shape. By the end of the season, Berg had established himself as the starting catcher.
At law school, Berg failed Evidence
and did not graduate with the class of 1929, but he did pass the New York State bar exam
. Berg repeated Evidence the following year, and on February 26, 1930 he received his LL.B.
On April 6, during an exhibition game against the Little Rock Travelers
, Berg's spikes caught in the soil as he tried to change directions, and he tore a knee ligament.
Berg was back in the starting lineup on May 23, 1930, but his knee would not allow him to play every day. He ended up getting into only 20 games the whole season and finished with a .115 batting average. During the winter, he took a job with the respected Wall Street
law firm Satterlee and Canfield (now Satterlee, Stephens, Burke & Burke). The Cleveland Indians
picked up Berg on April 2, 1931 when Chicago put him on waivers, but he played in only 10 games, and had 13 at bats and only 1 hit for the entire season.
The Indians gave Berg his unconditional release in January , but with catchers hard to come by, Clark Griffith
, owner of the Washington Senators
, invited him to spring training in Biloxi, Mississippi
. Berg made the team, playing in 75 games while committing no errors. When starting catcher Roy Spencer went down with an injury, Berg stepped in, throwing out 35 base runners while batting .236.
and Ted Lyons, to go to Japan to teach baseball seminars at Japanese universities during the winter of 1932. On October 22, 1932, the group of three players began their circuit of Meiji
, Waseda
, Rikkyo
, Todai (Tokyo Imperial)
, Hosei
, and Keio
universities, the members of the Tokyo Big Six University League. When the other Americans returned to the United States after their coaching assignments were over, Berg stayed behind to explore Japan. He went on to tour Manchuria
, Shanghai, Peking, Indochina
, Siam, India, Egypt
and Berlin.
Despite his desire to go back to Japan, Berg reported to the Senators training camp on February 26, 1933 in Biloxi. He played in just 40 games during the season, and batted only .185. The Senators won the pennant, but lost to the Giants in the World Series
. Cliff Bolton
, the Senators' starting catcher in 1933, demanded more money in . When the Senators refused to pay him more, he sat out and Berg got the starting job. On April 22, Berg made an error, his first fielding mistake since 1932—an American League record of 117 consecutive errorless games. On July 25, the Senators gave Berg his unconditional release. He soon returned to the big leagues, however, after Cleveland Indians
catcher Glenn Myatt
broke his ankle on August 1. Indians manager Walter Johnson
, who had managed Berg in 1932, offered Berg the reserve catching job. Berg played sporadically until Frankie Pytlak
, Cleveland's starting catcher, injured himself, and Berg became the starting catcher.
, Lou Gehrig
, Earl Averill
, Charlie Gehringer
, Jimmie Foxx
and Lefty Gomez
, to tour Japan playing exhibitions against a Japanese all-star team. Despite the fact that Berg was a mediocre, third-string catcher, he was invited at the last minute to make the trip. Among the items Berg took with him to Japan were a 16-mm
Bell and Howell
movie camera and a letter from MovietoneNews
, a New York City newsreel production company with which Berg had contracted to film the sights of his trip. When the team arrived in Japan, he gave a welcome speech in Japanese and also addressed the legislature
.
On November 29, 1934, while the rest of the team was playing in Omiya
, Berg went to Saint Luke's Hospital in Tsukiji
, ostensibly to visit the daughter of American ambassador Joseph Grew
. Instead, Berg sneaked onto the roof of the hospital, one of the tallest buildings in Tokyo, and filmed the city and harbor with his movie camera. He never did see the ambassador's daughter. Back at home, the Indians gave him his unconditional release. Berg continued on to the Philippines
, Korea and Moscow.
. In his five seasons with the Red Sox, Berg averaged fewer than 30 games a season.
On February 21, 1939, Berg made his first of three appearances on the radio quiz show, Information, Please! After missing the first question, Berg put on a dazzling performance. Of his appearance, baseball commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis
told him, "Berg, in just thirty minutes you did more for baseball than I've done the entire time I've been commissioner". On his third appearance, Clifton Fadiman
, the moderator, started asking Berg too many personal questions. Berg did not answer any more questions and never appeared on the show again. Regular show guest and sportswriter John Kieran later said that "Moe was the most scholarly professional athlete (I) ever knew."
After his playing career ended, Berg was a Red Sox coach in 1940 and 1941.
by the Japanese
on December 7, 1941, the United States was thrust into World War II
. To do his part for the war effort, Berg accepted a position with Nelson Rockefeller
's Office of Inter-American Affairs on January 5, 1942. Nine days later, his father, Bernard, died. During the summer of 1942, Berg screened the footage he shot of Tokyo Bay for intelligence officers of the United States military
. The film may have helped Lieutenant Colonel
Jimmy Doolittle
plan his famous Doolittle Raid
.
From August 1942 until February 1943, Berg was on assignment in the Caribbean
and South America. His job was to monitor the health and physical fitness of the American troops stationed there. Berg, along with several other OIAA agents, left in June 1943 because they thought South America posed little threat to the United States, and they wanted to be someplace where their talents would be put to better use.
On August 2, 1943, Berg accepted a position with the Office of Strategic Services
for a salary of $3,800 ($ today) a year. He was a Paramilitary Operations Officer in the part of the OSS that is now called the Special Activities Division
. In September, he was assigned to the Secret Intelligence
branch of the OSS and given a place at the OSS Balkans desk. In this role, he parachuted into Yugoslavia to evaluate the various resistance groups operating against the Nazis to determine which was the strongest. He talked to both Draza Mihajlovic and Tito
and reviewed their forces, deciding that Tito had the stronger and better supported group. His evaluations were used to help determine the amount of support and aid to give each group. In late 1943, Berg was assigned to Project Larson, an OSS operation set up by OSS Chief of Special Projects John Shaheen. The stated purpose of the project was to kidnap Italian rocket
and missile
specialists out of Italy and bring them to the U.S. However, there was another project hidden within Larson, called Project AZUSA, with the goal of interviewing Italian physicists
to see what they knew about Werner Heisenberg
and Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker
. It was similar in scope and mission to the Alsos
project.
From May 1944 to mid-December, Berg hopped around Europe interviewing physicists and trying to convince several to leave Europe and work in America. At the beginning of December, news about Heisenberg giving a lecture in Zurich
, Switzerland reached the OSS, and Berg was assigned the task of attending the lecture and determining "if anything Heisenberg said convinced him the Germans were close to a bomb
." If Berg came to the conclusion that the Germans were close, he had orders to shoot Heisenberg; Berg determined that the Germans were not close. During his time in Switzerland, Berg became close friends with the physicist Paul Scherrer
. Berg returned to the United States on April 25, 1945, and resigned from the Strategic Services Unit
, the successor to the OSS, in August. He was awarded the Medal of Freedom
on October 10, but he rejected the award on December 2. His sister later accepted it on his behalf after his death.
In 1951, Berg begged the CIA to send him to Israel. "A Jew must do this," he wrote in his notebook. The CIA rejected Berg's request. Still, in 1952 Berg was hired by the CIA to use his old contacts from World War II to gather information about the Soviet atomic science
. For the $10,000 plus expenses that Berg received, the CIA received nothing in return. The CIA officer who spoke with Berg when he returned from Europe said that he was "flaky". Berg continued to serve his assignment for the CIA until 1954, when his contract expired. The CIA chose not to renew it. Berg tried again to serve the CIA and the CIA again declined.
For the next 20 years, Berg had no real job, living off friends and relatives who put up with him because of his charisma. When they would ask what he did for a living, he would reply by putting his finger to his lips, giving them the impression that he was still a spy. A life-long bachelor, he lived with his brother Samuel for 17 years. According to Samuel, he became moody and snappish after the war and did not seem to care for much in life besides his books. His brother finally grew fed up with the arrangement and asked Moe to leave and even had eviction papers drawn up. After being evicted from his brother's home, Berg moved in with his sister Ethel in Belleville, New Jersey
, where he remained for the rest of his life.
He received a handful of votes in Baseball Hall of Fame voting (four in 1958
, and five in 1960
). When he was criticized for "wasting" his intellectual talent on the sport he loved, Berg replied, "I'd rather be a ballplayer than a justice on the U.S. Supreme Court".
Berg received many requests to write his memoirs, but turned them down; he almost wrote them in 1960, but he quit after the co-writer assigned to him confused him with Moe Howard
of the Three Stooges
.
, New Jersey
hospital where he died recalled his final words as, "How did the Mets
do today?" (They won.) His remains were cremated and spread over Mount Scopus
in Israel
.
's Shrine of the Eternals in 2000. His is the only baseball card
on display at the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency
.
In 1976, reporters Louis Kaufman of the Boston Globe and Tom Sewell of the Boston Herald joined writer Barbara Fitzgerald to write Moe Berg: Athlete, Scholar, Spy. In 1994 Nicholas Dawidoff wrote a biography, The Catcher Was a Spy: The Mysterious Life of Moe Berg.
Chuck Brodsky
, an American singer-songwriter, released a song entitled "Moe Berg: The Song" on his 1998 album Radio.
Catcher
Catcher is a position for a baseball or softball player. When a batter takes his turn to hit, the catcher crouches behind home plate, in front of the umpire, and receives the ball from the pitcher. This is a catcher's primary duty, but he is also called upon to master many other skills in order to...
and coach
Coach (baseball)
In baseball, a number of coaches assist in the smooth functioning of a team. They are assistants to the manager, or head coach, who determines the lineup and decides how to substitute players during the game...
in Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball is the highest level of professional baseball in the United States and Canada, consisting of teams that play in the National League and the American League...
who later served as a spy for the Office of Strategic Services
Office of Strategic Services
The Office of Strategic Services was a United States intelligence agency formed during World War II. It was the wartime intelligence agency, and it was a predecessor of the Central Intelligence Agency...
during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. Although he played 15 seasons in the major leagues, almost entirely for four American League
American League
The American League of Professional Baseball Clubs, or simply the American League , is one of two leagues that make up Major League Baseball in the United States and Canada. It developed from the Western League, a minor league based in the Great Lakes states, which eventually aspired to major...
teams, Berg was never more than an average player, usually used as a backup catcher, and was better known for being "the brainiest guy in baseball" than for anything he accomplished in the game. Casey Stengel
Casey Stengel
Charles Dillon "Casey" Stengel , nicknamed "The Old Perfessor", was an American Major League Baseball outfielder and manager. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in ....
once described Berg as "the strangest man ever to play baseball".
A graduate of Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
and Columbia Law School
Columbia Law School
Columbia Law School, founded in 1858, is one of the oldest and most prestigious law schools in the United States. A member of the Ivy League, Columbia Law School is one of the professional graduate schools of Columbia University in New York City. It offers the J.D., LL.M., and J.S.D. degrees in...
, Berg spoke several languages and regularly read 10 newspapers a day. His reputation was fueled by his successful appearances as a contestant on the radio quiz show
Quiz Show
Quiz Show is a 1994 American historical drama film produced and directed by Robert Redford. Adapted by Paul Attanasio from Richard Goodwin's memoir Remembering America, the film is based upon the Twenty One quiz show scandal of the 1950s...
Information, Please! in which he answered questions about the derivation
Etymology
Etymology is the study of the history of words, their origins, and how their form and meaning have changed over time.For languages with a long written history, etymologists make use of texts in these languages and texts about the languages to gather knowledge about how words were used during...
of words and names from Greek
Attic Greek
Attic Greek is the prestige dialect of Ancient Greek that was spoken in Attica, which includes Athens. Of the ancient dialects, it is the most similar to later Greek, and is the standard form of the language studied in courses of "Ancient Greek". It is sometimes included in Ionic.- Origin and range...
and Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
, historical events in Europe and the Far East
Far East
The Far East is an English term mostly describing East Asia and Southeast Asia, with South Asia sometimes also included for economic and cultural reasons.The term came into use in European geopolitical discourse in the 19th century,...
, and ongoing international conferences.
As a spy working for the government of the United States, Berg traveled to Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....
to gather intelligence on resistance groups the U.S. government
Federal government of the United States
The federal government of the United States is the national government of the constitutional republic of fifty states that is the United States of America. The federal government comprises three distinct branches of government: a legislative, an executive and a judiciary. These branches and...
was considering supporting. He was then sent on a mission to Italy, where he interviewed various physicists concerning the German
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
nuclear program
German nuclear energy project
The German nuclear energy project, , was an attempted clandestine scientific effort led by Germany to develop and produce the atomic weapons during the events involving the World War II...
. After the war, Berg was occasionally employed by the OSS's
Office of Strategic Services
The Office of Strategic Services was a United States intelligence agency formed during World War II. It was the wartime intelligence agency, and it was a predecessor of the Central Intelligence Agency...
successor, the Central Intelligence Agency
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
, but, by the mid-1950s, was unemployed. He spent the last two decades of his life without work, living with various siblings.
Early life
Moe Berg was the third and last child of Bernard Berg, a pharmacist, and Rose Tashker, a homemaker, both Jewish, who lived in the HarlemHarlem
Harlem is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, which since the 1920s has been a major African-American residential, cultural and business center. Originally a Dutch village, formally organized in 1658, it is named after the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands...
section of New York City, New York, a few blocks from the Polo Grounds
Polo Grounds
The Polo Grounds was the name given to four different stadiums in Upper Manhattan, New York City, used by many professional teams in both baseball and American football from 1880 until 1963...
. When Berg was three and a half, he begged his mother to let him start school. In 1906, Bernard Berg bought a pharmacy in West Newark
Newark, New Jersey
Newark is the largest city in the American state of New Jersey, and the seat of Essex County. As of the 2010 United States Census, Newark had a population of 277,140, maintaining its status as the largest municipality in New Jersey. It is the 68th largest city in the U.S...
. In 1910 the Berg family moved again, to the Roseville
Roseville, Newark, New Jersey
Roseville is a neighborhood in northwestern Newark, New Jersey, bordering Bloomfield and East Orange. To the neighborhood's immediate east is the Newark City Subway and Branch Brook Park...
section of Newark. Roseville offered Bernard Berg everything he wanted in a neighborhood—good schools, middle-class residents, and very few Jews.
Berg began playing baseball at the age of seven for the Roseville Methodist Episcopal Church
Methodist Episcopal Church
The Methodist Episcopal Church, sometimes referred to as the M.E. Church, was a development of the first expression of Methodism in the United States. It officially began at the Baltimore Christmas Conference in 1784, with Francis Asbury and Thomas Coke as the first bishops. Through a series of...
baseball
Baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...
team under the less ethnic pseudonym Runt Wolfe. In 1918, at the age of 16, Berg graduated from Barringer High School
Barringer High School
Barringer High School, formerly Newark High School, is a four-year comprehensive public high school in Newark, in Essex County, New Jersey, United States, operating as part of the Newark Public Schools. Some consider it to be the third oldest public high school in the United States...
. During his senior season, the Newark Star-Eagle selected a nine-man "dream team" for from the city's best prep and public high school baseball players, and Berg was named the team's third baseman
Third baseman
A third baseman, abbreviated 3B, is the player in baseball whose responsibility is to defend the area nearest to third base — the third of four bases a baserunner must touch in succession to score a run...
. Barringer was the first in a series of institutions Berg joined in his life where his religion made him unusual. Most of the other students were East Side Italian Catholics or Protestants from Forest Hill
Forest Hill, Newark, New Jersey
Forest Hill is an affluent pre-World War II neighborhood in Newark, New Jersey's North Ward. It is bounded on the west by Branch Brook Park, on the south by Bloomfield Avenue , and on the east by both Summer and Mt. Prospect Avenues, the neighborhood of Broadway...
, but there were not many Jews, just as Bernard wanted it.
After graduating from Barringer, Berg enrolled in New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
. He spent two semesters there and played baseball and basketball
Basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams of five players try to score points by throwing or "shooting" a ball through the top of a basketball hoop while following a set of rules...
. In 1919 he transferred to Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
, and never again mentioned that he attended NYU for a year, presenting himself exclusively as a Princeton man. Berg received a B.A.
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...
, magna cum laude
Latin honors
Latin honors are Latin phrases used to indicate the level of academic distinction with which an academic degree was earned. This system is primarily used in the United States, Canada, and in many countries of continental Europe, though some institutions also use the English translation of these...
in modern language
Modern language
A modern language is any human language that is currently in use. The term is used in language education to distinguish between languages which are used for day-to-day communication and dead classical languages such as Latin, Attic Greek, Sanskrit, and Classical Chinese, which are studied for...
s. He had studied seven languages: Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
, Greek
Attic Greek
Attic Greek is the prestige dialect of Ancient Greek that was spoken in Attica, which includes Athens. Of the ancient dialects, it is the most similar to later Greek, and is the standard form of the language studied in courses of "Ancient Greek". It is sometimes included in Ionic.- Origin and range...
, French, Spanish, Italian, German and Sanskrit. His Jewish heritage and modest finances combined to keep him on the fringes of Princeton society, where he never quite fit in.
During his freshman year, Berg played first base
First baseman
First base, or 1B, is the first of four stations on a baseball diamond which must be touched in succession by a baserunner in order to score a run for that player's team...
on an undefeated team. Beginning in his sophomore year, he was the starting shortstop
Shortstop
Shortstop, abbreviated SS, is the baseball fielding position between second and third base. Shortstop is often regarded as the most dynamic defensive position in baseball, because there are more right-handed hitters in baseball than left-handed hitters, and most hitters have a tendency to pull the...
. He was not a great hitter and was a slow baserunner, but he had a strong, accurate throwing arm and sound baseball instincts. In his senior season, he was captain of the team and had a .337 batting average
Batting average
Batting average is a statistic in both cricket and baseball that measures the performance of cricket batsmen and baseball hitters. The two statistics are related in that baseball averages are directly descended from the concept of cricket averages.- Cricket :...
, batting .611 against Princeton's arch-rivals, Harvard
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
and Yale
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
. Crossan Cooper, Princeton's second baseman
Second baseman
Second base, or 2B, is the second of four stations on a baseball diamond which must be touched in succession by a base runner in order to score a run for that player's team. A second baseman is the baseball player guarding second base...
, and Berg communicated plays in Latin when there was a man on second base.
On June 26, 1923, Yale defeated Princeton 5–1 at Yankee Stadium to win the Big Three
Big Three (colleges)
The Big Three is a historical term used in the United States to refer to Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. The phrase Big Three originated in the 1880s, when these three colleges dominated college football. High schools' college admissions counselors and colleges' admissions guides sometimes use the...
title. Berg had an outstanding day, getting two hits
Hit (baseball)
In baseball statistics, a hit , also called a base hit, is credited to a batter when the batter safely reaches first base after hitting the ball into fair territory, without the benefit of an error or a fielder's choice....
in four at bat
At bat
In baseball, an at bat or time at bat is used to calculate certain statistics, including batting average, on base percentage, and slugging percentage. It is a more restricted definition of a plate appearance...
s (2–4) with a single
Single (baseball)
In baseball, a single is the most common type of base hit, accomplished through the act of a batter safely reaching first base by hitting a fair ball and getting to first base before a fielder puts him out...
and a double
Double (baseball)
In baseball, a double is the act of a batter striking the pitched ball and safely reaching second base without being called out by the umpire, without the benefit of a fielder's misplay or another runner being put out on a fielder's choice....
, and making several marvelous plays at shortstop. Both the New York Giants
San Francisco Giants
The San Francisco Giants are a Major League Baseball team based in San Francisco, California, playing in the National League West Division....
and the Brooklyn Robins
Los Angeles Dodgers
The Los Angeles Dodgers are a professional baseball team based in Los Angeles, California. The Dodgers are members of Major League Baseball's National League West Division. Established in 1883, the team originated in Brooklyn, New York, where it was known by a number of nicknames before becoming...
desired "Jewish blood" on their teams, to appeal to the large Jewish community in New York, and expressed interest in Berg. The Giants were especially interested, but they already had two future Hall of Famers at shortstop, Dave "Beauty" Bancroft
Dave Bancroft
David James "Beauty" Bancroft was an American baseball player who played Major League Baseball from 1915 to 1930. He is a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame....
and Travis Jackson
Travis Jackson
Travis Calvin Jackson was a Major League Baseball player during the 1920s and 1930s. His exceptional range at shortstop led to the nickname "Stonewall."...
. The Robins were a mediocre team, where Berg would have a better chance to play. On June 27, 1923, Berg signed his first big league contract for $5,000 ($ today) with the Robins.
Early career (1923–1925)
Berg's first game with the Robins came the very next day against the Philadelphia PhilliesPhiladelphia Phillies
The Philadelphia Phillies are a Major League Baseball team. They are the oldest continuous, one-name, one-city franchise in all of professional American sports, dating to 1883. The Phillies are a member of the Eastern Division of Major League Baseball's National League...
at the Baker Bowl
Baker Bowl
Baker Bowl is the best-known popular name of a baseball park that formerly stood in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Its formal name, painted on its outer wall, was National League Park. It was also initially known as Philadelphia Park or Philadelphia Base Ball Grounds.It was on a small...
. Berg came in at the start of the seventh inning, replacing Dutch Ruether
Dutch Ruether
Walter Henry Ruether was an American baseball player who pitched for five different Major League teams...
, when the Robins were winning 13–4. Berg handled five chances
Total chances
In baseball statistics, total chances , also called chances offered, represents the number of plays in which a defensive player has participated. It is calculated as follows: Total Chances = assists + putouts + errors. Chances accepted refers to the total of putouts and assists only. Fielding...
without an error
Error (baseball)
In baseball statistics, an error is the act, in the judgment of the official scorer, of a fielder misplaying a ball in a manner that allows a batter or baserunner to reach one or more additional bases, when such an advance would have been prevented given ordinary effort by the fielder.The term ...
and caught a line drive to start a game-ending double play
Double play
In baseball, a double play for a team or a fielder is the act of making two outs during the same continuous playing action. In baseball slang, making a double play is referred to as "turning two"....
. He made a hit in his only at bat, getting a single up the middle against Clarence Mitchell
Clarence Mitchell
Clarence Elmer Mitchell , is a former Major League Baseball pitcher. He played in the majors from 1911-1932 for the Detroit Tigers, Cincinnati Reds, New York Giants, Brooklyn Robins, Philadelphia Phillies and St. Louis Cardinals...
, and scoring a run
Run (baseball)
In baseball, a run is scored when a player advances around first, second and third base and returns safely to home plate, touching the bases in that order, before three outs are recorded and all obligations to reach base safely on batted balls are met or assured...
. For the season, Berg batted .187 and made 21 errors in 47 games, his only National League
National League
The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the National League , is the older of two leagues constituting Major League Baseball, and the world's oldest extant professional team sports league. Founded on February 2, 1876, to replace the National Association of Professional...
experience.
After the season ended, Berg took his first trip abroad, sailing from New York to Paris. He settled in the Latin Quarter
Latin Quarter
Latin Quarter is a part of the 5th arrondissement in Paris.Latin Quarter may also refer to:* Latin Quarter , a British pop/rock band* Latin Quarter , a 1945 British film*Latin Quarter, Aarhus, part of Midtbyen, Aarhus C, Denmark...
in an apartment that overlooked the Sorbonne
University of Paris
The University of Paris was a university located in Paris, France and one of the earliest to be established in Europe. It was founded in the mid 12th century, and officially recognized as a university probably between 1160 and 1250...
, where he enrolled in 32 different classes. In Paris he developed a habit he kept for the rest of his life: reading several newspapers daily. Until Berg finished reading a paper, he considered it "alive" and refused to let anyone else touch it. When he was finished with it, he would consider the paper "dead" and anybody could read it. In January 1924, instead of heading back to New York and getting himself into shape for the upcoming baseball season, Berg toured Italy and Switzerland.
During spring training
Spring training
In Major League Baseball, spring training is a series of practices and exhibition games preceding the start of the regular season. Spring training allows new players to try out for roster and position spots, and gives existing team players practice time prior to competitive play...
at the Robins facility in Clearwater, Florida
Clearwater, Florida
Clearwater is a city located in Pinellas County, Florida, US, nearly due west of Tampa and northwest of St. Petersburg. In the west of Clearwater lies the Gulf of Mexico and in the east lies Tampa Bay. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 108,787. It is the county seat of...
, manager Wilbert Robinson
Wilbert Robinson
Wilbert Robinson , nicknamed "Uncle Robbie", was an American catcher, coach and manager in Major League Baseball...
could see that Berg's hitting had not improved, and optioned him to the Minneapolis Millers
Minneapolis Millers
The Minneapolis Millers were an American professional minor league baseball team that played in Minneapolis, Minnesota, until 1960. In the 19th century a different Minneapolis Millers were part of the Western League.The team played first in Athletic Park and later Nicollet Park.The name Minneapolis...
of the American Association
American Association (20th century)
The American Association was a minor league baseball league at the Triple-A level of baseball in the United States from to and to . Together with the International League, it contested the Junior World Series which determined the championship team in minor league baseball, at least for the...
. Berg did not take the demotion well and threatened to quit baseball, but by mid-April he reported to the Millers. Berg did very well once he became the Millers' regular third baseman, hitting close to .330, but in July his average plummeted and he was back on the bench. On August 19, 1924 Berg was loaned to the Toledo Mud Hens
Toledo Mud Hens
The Toledo Mud Hens are a minor league baseball team located in Toledo, Ohio. The Mud Hens play in the International League, and are affiliated with the major league baseball team the Detroit Tigers, based approximately 50 miles to the north of Toledo. The current team is one of several...
, a poor team ravaged by injuries. Berg was immediately inserted into the lineup at shortstop when Rabbit Helgeth refused to pay a $10 ($ today) fine for poor play and was suspended. Major league scout Mike Gonzalez sent a telegram to the Dodgers evaluating Berg with the curt, but now famous, line, "Good field, no hit." Berg finished the season with a .264 average.
By April 1925, he was starting to show promise as a hitter with the Reading Keystones of the International League
International League
The International League is a minor league baseball league that operates in the eastern United States. Like the Pacific Coast League and the Mexican League, it plays at the Triple-A level, which is one step below Major League Baseball. It was so named because it had teams in both the United States...
. Because of his .311 batting average and 124 runs batted in
Run batted in
Runs batted in or RBIs is a statistic used in baseball and softball to credit a batter when the outcome of his at-bat results in a run being scored, except in certain situations such as when an error is made on the play. The first team to track RBI was the Buffalo Bisons.Common nicknames for an RBI...
, the Chicago White Sox
Chicago White Sox
The Chicago White Sox are a Major League Baseball team located in Chicago, Illinois.The White Sox play in the American League's Central Division. Since , the White Sox have played in U.S. Cellular Field, which was originally called New Comiskey Park and nicknamed The Cell by local fans...
exercised their option they had with Reading, paying $6,000 ($ today) for him, and moved Berg up to the big leagues the following year.
Career as a catcher (1926–1934)
The 1926 season began with Berg informing the White Sox that he would skip spring training and the first two months of the season to complete his first year of law school at Columbia UniversityColumbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
, and Berg did not join the White Sox until May 28. Bill Hunnefield was signed by the White Sox to take Berg's place at shortstop, and was having a very good year, batting over .300. Berg played in only 41 games, batting .221.
Berg returned to Columbia after the season to continue working on his law degree. Despite White Sox owner Charles Comiskey
Charles Comiskey
Charles Albert "The Old Roman" Comiskey was a Major League Baseball player, manager and team owner. He was a key person in the formation of the American League and later owned the Chicago White Sox...
offering him more money to come to spring training, Berg declined, and informed the White Sox that he would be reporting late for the 1927 season. Noel Dowling, a professor to whom Berg explained his situation, told Berg to take extra classes in the fall, and said that he would arrange with the dean a leave of absence from law school the following year, 1928.
Because he reported late, Berg spent the first three months of the season on the bench. In August, a series of injuries to catchers Ray Schalk
Ray Schalk
Raymond William Schalk was a professional baseball player, coach, manager and scout. He played as a catcher in Major League Baseball for the Chicago White Sox for the majority of his career. Known for his fine handling of pitchers and outstanding defensive ability, Schalk was considered the...
, Harry McCurdy
Harry McCurdy
Harry Henry McCurdy born in Stevens Point, Wisconsin was a catcher for the St. Louis Cardinals , Chicago White Sox , Philadelphia Phillies and Cincinnati Reds ....
and Buck Crouse
Buck Crouse
Clyde "Bucky" Ellsworth Crouse was an American catcher in Major League Baseball.-Early Minor League Career:...
left the White Sox in need of somebody to play the position. Schalk, the White Sox player/manager, selected Berg, who did a fine job filling in. Schalk arranged for former Philadelphia Phillies catcher Frank Bruggy
Frank Bruggy
Frank Leo Bruggy was a catcher in Major League Baseball. In a five-season career, he played for the Philadelphia Phillies, the Philadelphia Athletics, and the Cincinnati Reds...
to meet the team at their next game, against the New York Yankees
New York Yankees
The New York Yankees are a professional baseball team based in the The Bronx, New York. They compete in Major League Baseball in the American League's East Division...
. Bruggy was so fat that pitcher Ted Lyons refused to pitch to him. When Schalk asked him who he wanted to catch, Lyons selected Berg.
In Berg's debut as a starting catcher, he had to worry not only about catching Lyons's knuckleball
Knuckleball
A knuckleball is a baseball pitch with an erratic, unpredictable motion. The pitch is thrown so as to minimize the spin of the ball in flight. This causes vortices over the stitched seams of the baseball during its trajectory, which in turn can cause the pitch to change direction—and even...
, but also about facing the Yankees' Murderers' Row
Murderers' Row
Murderers’ Row was the nickname given to the New York Yankees baseball team of the late 1920s, in particular the first six hitters in the 1927 team lineup: Earle Combs, Mark Koenig, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Bob Meusel and Tony Lazzeri....
lineup, which included Babe Ruth
Babe Ruth
George Herman Ruth, Jr. , best known as "Babe" Ruth and nicknamed "the Bambino" and "the Sultan of Swat", was an American Major League baseball player from 1914–1935...
, Lou Gehrig
Lou Gehrig
Henry Louis "Lou" Gehrig , nicknamed "The Iron Horse" for his durability, was an American Major League Baseball first baseman. He played his entire 17-year baseball career for the New York Yankees . Gehrig set several major league records. He holds the record for most career grand slams...
and Earle Combs
Earle Combs
Earle Bryan Combs was an American professional baseball player, who played his entire career for the New York Yankees . Combs batted leadoff and played center field on the Yankees' fabled 1927 team...
. Lyons beat the Yankees 6–3, holding Ruth hitless. Berg made the defensive play of the game when he caught a poor throw from the outfield, spun and tagged out Joe Dugan
Joe Dugan
Joseph Anthony Dugan , was an American professional baseball player. Nicknamed "Jumping Joe", he played in Major League Baseball as a shortstop and third baseman from 1917 through 1931. Dugan played for the Philadelphia Athletics , Boston Red Sox , New York Yankees , Boston Braves and Detroit...
at the plate. Berg caught eight more times during the final month and a half of the season.
To prepare for the 1928 season, Berg traveled to a lumber camp in New York's Adirondack Mountains
Adirondack Mountains
The Adirondack Mountains are a mountain range located in the northeastern part of New York, that runs through Clinton, Essex, Franklin, Fulton, Hamilton, Herkimer, Lewis, Saint Lawrence, Saratoga, Warren, and Washington counties....
three weeks prior to reporting to the White Sox spring training facility in Shreveport, Louisiana
Shreveport, Louisiana
Shreveport is the third largest city in Louisiana. It is the principal city of the fourth largest metropolitan area in the state of Louisiana and is the 109th-largest city in the United States....
. The hard labor did wonders for him, as he reported to spring training on March 2, 1928 in excellent shape. By the end of the season, Berg had established himself as the starting catcher.
At law school, Berg failed Evidence
Evidence (law)
The law of evidence encompasses the rules and legal principles that govern the proof of facts in a legal proceeding. These rules determine what evidence can be considered by the trier of fact in reaching its decision and, sometimes, the weight that may be given to that evidence...
and did not graduate with the class of 1929, but he did pass the New York State bar exam
Bar examination
A bar examination is an examination conducted at regular intervals to determine whether a candidate is qualified to practice law in a given jurisdiction.-Brazil:...
. Berg repeated Evidence the following year, and on February 26, 1930 he received his LL.B.
Bachelor of Laws
The Bachelor of Laws is an undergraduate, or bachelor, degree in law originating in England and offered in most common law countries as the primary law degree...
On April 6, during an exhibition game against the Little Rock Travelers
Little Rock Travelers
The Little Rock Travelers were an American minor league baseball team located in Little Rock, Arkansas and members of the Southern Association, which as a Class A, A1 or AA circuit was typically two rungs below Major League Baseball...
, Berg's spikes caught in the soil as he tried to change directions, and he tore a knee ligament.
Berg was back in the starting lineup on May 23, 1930, but his knee would not allow him to play every day. He ended up getting into only 20 games the whole season and finished with a .115 batting average. During the winter, he took a job with the respected Wall Street
Wall Street
Wall Street refers to the financial district of New York City, named after and centered on the eight-block-long street running from Broadway to South Street on the East River in Lower Manhattan. Over time, the term has become a metonym for the financial markets of the United States as a whole, or...
law firm Satterlee and Canfield (now Satterlee, Stephens, Burke & Burke). The Cleveland Indians
Cleveland Indians
The Cleveland Indians are a professional baseball team based in Cleveland, Ohio. They are in the Central Division of Major League Baseball's American League. Since , they have played in Progressive Field. The team's spring training facility is in Goodyear, Arizona...
picked up Berg on April 2, 1931 when Chicago put him on waivers, but he played in only 10 games, and had 13 at bats and only 1 hit for the entire season.
The Indians gave Berg his unconditional release in January , but with catchers hard to come by, Clark Griffith
Clark Griffith
Clark Calvin Griffith , nicknamed "the Old Fox", was a Major League Baseball pitcher, manager and team owner.-Biography:...
, owner of the Washington Senators
Minnesota Twins
The Minnesota Twins are a professional baseball team based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. They play in the Central Division of Major League Baseball's American League. The team is named after the Twin Cities area of Minneapolis and St. Paul. They played in Metropolitan Stadium from 1961 to 1981 and the...
, invited him to spring training in Biloxi, Mississippi
Biloxi, Mississippi
Biloxi is a city in Harrison County, Mississippi, in the United States. The 2010 census recorded the population as 44,054. Along with Gulfport, Biloxi is a county seat of Harrison County....
. Berg made the team, playing in 75 games while committing no errors. When starting catcher Roy Spencer went down with an injury, Berg stepped in, throwing out 35 base runners while batting .236.
First trip to Japan
Retired ballplayer Herb Hunter arranged for three players, Berg, Lefty O'DoulLefty O'Doul
Francis Joseph "Lefty" O'Doul was an American Major League Baseball player who went on to become an extraordinarily successful manager in the minor leagues, and also a vital figure in the establishment of professional baseball in Japan.-Player:Born in San Francisco, California, O'Doul began his...
and Ted Lyons, to go to Japan to teach baseball seminars at Japanese universities during the winter of 1932. On October 22, 1932, the group of three players began their circuit of Meiji
Meiji University
is a private university in Tokyo and Kawasaki, founded in 1881 by three lawyers of the Meiji era, Kishimoto Tatsuo, Miyagi Kōzō, and Yashiro Misao. It is one of the largest and most prestigious Japanese universities in Tokyo, Japan....
, Waseda
Waseda University
, abbreviated as , is one of the most prestigious private universities in Japan and Asia. Its main campuses are located in the northern part of Shinjuku, Tokyo. Founded in 1882 as Tokyo Senmon Gakko, the institution was renamed "Waseda University" in 1902. It is known for its liberal climate...
, Rikkyo
Rikkyo University
, also known as Saint Paul's University, is a private university, based on Christian precepts, in Ikebukuro, Tokyo. There is a suburban campus in Niiza in nearby Saitama.It is known for its liberal climate symbolized by the motto -History:...
, Todai (Tokyo Imperial)
University of Tokyo
, abbreviated as , is a major research university located in Tokyo, Japan. The University has 10 faculties with a total of around 30,000 students, 2,100 of whom are foreign. Its five campuses are in Hongō, Komaba, Kashiwa, Shirokane and Nakano. It is considered to be the most prestigious university...
, Hosei
Hosei University
is a private university based in Tokyo, Japan.The university originated in a school of law, Tōkyō Hōgakusha , established in 1880, and the following year renamed Tōkyō Hōgakkō . This was from 1883 headed by Dr. Gustave Emile Boissonade, and was heavily influenced by the French legal tradition...
, and Keio
Keio University
,abbreviated as Keio or Keidai , is a Japanese university located in Minato, Tokyo. It is known as the oldest institute of higher education in Japan. Founder Fukuzawa Yukichi originally established it as a school for Western studies in 1858 in Edo . It has eleven campuses in Tokyo and Kanagawa...
universities, the members of the Tokyo Big Six University League. When the other Americans returned to the United States after their coaching assignments were over, Berg stayed behind to explore Japan. He went on to tour Manchuria
Manchuria
Manchuria is a historical name given to a large geographic region in northeast Asia. Depending on the definition of its extent, Manchuria usually falls entirely within the People's Republic of China, or is sometimes divided between China and Russia. The region is commonly referred to as Northeast...
, Shanghai, Peking, Indochina
Indochina
The Indochinese peninsula, is a region in Southeast Asia. It lies roughly southwest of China, and east of India. The name has its origins in the French, Indochine, as a combination of the names of "China" and "India", and was adopted when French colonizers in Vietnam began expanding their territory...
, Siam, India, Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
and Berlin.
Despite his desire to go back to Japan, Berg reported to the Senators training camp on February 26, 1933 in Biloxi. He played in just 40 games during the season, and batted only .185. The Senators won the pennant, but lost to the Giants in the World Series
1933 World Series
The 1933 World Series featured the New York Giants and the Washington Senators, with the Giants winning in five games for their first championship since , and their fourth overall....
. Cliff Bolton
Cliff Bolton
William Clifton Bolton was a catcher in Major League Baseball who played for the Washington Senators and Detroit Tigers. He was born in High Point, North Carolina.-Career:...
, the Senators' starting catcher in 1933, demanded more money in . When the Senators refused to pay him more, he sat out and Berg got the starting job. On April 22, Berg made an error, his first fielding mistake since 1932—an American League record of 117 consecutive errorless games. On July 25, the Senators gave Berg his unconditional release. He soon returned to the big leagues, however, after Cleveland Indians
Cleveland Indians
The Cleveland Indians are a professional baseball team based in Cleveland, Ohio. They are in the Central Division of Major League Baseball's American League. Since , they have played in Progressive Field. The team's spring training facility is in Goodyear, Arizona...
catcher Glenn Myatt
Glenn Myatt
Glenn Calvin Myatt , was a retired professional baseball player who was a catcher in the Major Leagues from -. He played for the Philadelphia Athletics, Cleveland Indians, New York Giants, and Detroit Tigers.-External links:...
broke his ankle on August 1. Indians manager Walter Johnson
Walter Johnson
Walter Perry Johnson , nicknamed "Barney" and "The Big Train", was a Major League Baseball right-handed pitcher. He played his entire 21-year baseball career for the Washington Senators...
, who had managed Berg in 1932, offered Berg the reserve catching job. Berg played sporadically until Frankie Pytlak
Frankie Pytlak
Frank Anthony Pytlak born in Buffalo, New York was an American professional baseball player. He played in Major League Baseball as a catcher for the Cleveland Indians and Boston Red Sox...
, Cleveland's starting catcher, injured himself, and Berg became the starting catcher.
Second trip to Japan
Herb Hunter arranged for a group of All-Stars, including Babe RuthBabe Ruth
George Herman Ruth, Jr. , best known as "Babe" Ruth and nicknamed "the Bambino" and "the Sultan of Swat", was an American Major League baseball player from 1914–1935...
, Lou Gehrig
Lou Gehrig
Henry Louis "Lou" Gehrig , nicknamed "The Iron Horse" for his durability, was an American Major League Baseball first baseman. He played his entire 17-year baseball career for the New York Yankees . Gehrig set several major league records. He holds the record for most career grand slams...
, Earl Averill
Earl Averill
Howard Earl Averill was an American player in Major League Baseball who was a center fielder from 1929 to 1941...
, Charlie Gehringer
Charlie Gehringer
Charles Leonard Gehringer , nicknamed “The Mechanical Man,” was a German-American Major League Baseball second baseman who played 19 seasons for the Detroit Tigers...
, Jimmie Foxx
Jimmie Foxx
James Emory "Jimmie" Foxx , nicknamed "Double X" and "The Beast", was a right-handed American Major League Baseball first baseman and noted power hitter....
and Lefty Gomez
Lefty Gómez
Vernon Louis "Lefty" Gomez was an American left-handed major league pitcher who played in the American League for the New York Yankees between 1930 and 1942. Considered one of the great pitchers of the day, Gomez was a seven-time All-Star and a five-time World Series Champion with the Yankees...
, to tour Japan playing exhibitions against a Japanese all-star team. Despite the fact that Berg was a mediocre, third-string catcher, he was invited at the last minute to make the trip. Among the items Berg took with him to Japan were a 16-mm
16 mm film
16 mm film refers to a popular, economical gauge of film used for motion pictures and non-theatrical film making. 16 mm refers to the width of the film...
Bell and Howell
Böwe Bell & Howell
Bell & Howell is a U.S.-based former manufacturer of motion picture machinery, founded as Bell & Howell in 1907 by two projectionists, and headquartered in Wheeling, Illinois. The company merged with Böwe Systec Inc...
movie camera and a letter from MovietoneNews
Movietone News
Movietone News is a newsreel that ran from 1928 to 1963 in the United States, and from 1929 to 1979 in the United Kingdom.-History:It is known in the U.S. as Fox Movietone News, produced cinema, sound newsreels from 1928 to 1963 in the U.S., from 1929 to 1979 in the UK , and from 1929 to 1975 in...
, a New York City newsreel production company with which Berg had contracted to film the sights of his trip. When the team arrived in Japan, he gave a welcome speech in Japanese and also addressed the legislature
Diet of Japan
The is Japan's bicameral legislature. It is composed of a lower house, called the House of Representatives, and an upper house, called the House of Councillors. Both houses of the Diet are directly elected under a parallel voting system. In addition to passing laws, the Diet is formally...
.
On November 29, 1934, while the rest of the team was playing in Omiya
Omiya, Saitama
was a city in Saitama Prefecture, Japan. In 2001 it merged with two other cities to form the city of Saitama. Since 1 April 2003, the area of former Ōmiya city is Kita-ku, Minuma-ku, Nishi-ku, and Ōmiya-ku of Saitama city.-Origin and pre-modern history:...
, Berg went to Saint Luke's Hospital in Tsukiji
Tsukiji
Tsukiji is a district of Chūō, Tokyo, Japan, the site of the Tsukiji fish market. Literally meaning "reclaimed land," it lies near the Sumida River on land reclaimed from Tokyo Bay in the 18th century, during the Edo period....
, ostensibly to visit the daughter of American ambassador Joseph Grew
Joseph Grew
Joseph Clark Grew was a United States diplomat and career foreign service officer. He was the chargé d'affaires at the U.S. embassy in Vienna when Austria-Hungary severed diplomatic relations with the United States on April 9, 1917. Later he was the U.S. Ambassador to Denmark 1920–1921 and U.S....
. Instead, Berg sneaked onto the roof of the hospital, one of the tallest buildings in Tokyo, and filmed the city and harbor with his movie camera. He never did see the ambassador's daughter. Back at home, the Indians gave him his unconditional release. Berg continued on to the Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
, Korea and Moscow.
Late career and coaching (1935–1941)
After his return to America, Berg was picked up by the Boston Red SoxBoston Red Sox
The Boston Red Sox are a professional baseball team based in Boston, Massachusetts, and a member of Major League Baseball’s American League Eastern Division. Founded in as one of the American League's eight charter franchises, the Red Sox's home ballpark has been Fenway Park since . The "Red Sox"...
. In his five seasons with the Red Sox, Berg averaged fewer than 30 games a season.
On February 21, 1939, Berg made his first of three appearances on the radio quiz show, Information, Please! After missing the first question, Berg put on a dazzling performance. Of his appearance, baseball commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis
Kenesaw Mountain Landis
Kenesaw Mountain Landis was an American jurist who served as a federal judge from 1905 to 1922 and as the first Commissioner of Baseball from 1920 until his death...
told him, "Berg, in just thirty minutes you did more for baseball than I've done the entire time I've been commissioner". On his third appearance, Clifton Fadiman
Clifton Fadiman
Clifton P. "Kip" Fadiman was an American intellectual, author, editor, radio and television personality.-Literary career:...
, the moderator, started asking Berg too many personal questions. Berg did not answer any more questions and never appeared on the show again. Regular show guest and sportswriter John Kieran later said that "Moe was the most scholarly professional athlete (I) ever knew."
After his playing career ended, Berg was a Red Sox coach in 1940 and 1941.
Spying for the U.S. Government
With the attack on Pearl HarborAttack on Pearl Harbor
The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike conducted by the Imperial Japanese Navy against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on the morning of December 7, 1941...
by the Japanese
Empire of Japan
The Empire of Japan is the name of the state of Japan that existed from the Meiji Restoration on 3 January 1868 to the enactment of the post-World War II Constitution of...
on December 7, 1941, the United States was thrust into World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. To do his part for the war effort, Berg accepted a position with Nelson Rockefeller
Nelson Rockefeller
Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller was the 41st Vice President of the United States , serving under President Gerald Ford, and the 49th Governor of New York , as well as serving the Roosevelt, Truman and Eisenhower administrations in a variety of positions...
's Office of Inter-American Affairs on January 5, 1942. Nine days later, his father, Bernard, died. During the summer of 1942, Berg screened the footage he shot of Tokyo Bay for intelligence officers of the United States military
Military of the United States
The United States Armed Forces are the military forces of the United States. They consist of the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, and Coast Guard.The United States has a strong tradition of civilian control of the military...
. The film may have helped Lieutenant Colonel
Lieutenant colonel
Lieutenant colonel is a rank of commissioned officer in the armies and most marine forces and some air forces of the world, typically ranking above a major and below a colonel. The rank of lieutenant colonel is often shortened to simply "colonel" in conversation and in unofficial correspondence...
Jimmy Doolittle
Jimmy Doolittle
General James Harold "Jimmy" Doolittle, USAF was an American aviation pioneer. Doolittle served as a brigadier general, major general and lieutenant general in the United States Army Air Forces during the Second World War...
plan his famous Doolittle Raid
Doolittle Raid
The Doolittle Raid, on 18 April 1942, was the first air raid by the United States to strike the Japanese Home Islands during World War II. By demonstrating that Japan itself was vulnerable to American air attack, it provided a vital morale boost and opportunity for U.S. retaliation after the...
.
From August 1942 until February 1943, Berg was on assignment in the Caribbean
Caribbean
The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...
and South America. His job was to monitor the health and physical fitness of the American troops stationed there. Berg, along with several other OIAA agents, left in June 1943 because they thought South America posed little threat to the United States, and they wanted to be someplace where their talents would be put to better use.
On August 2, 1943, Berg accepted a position with the Office of Strategic Services
Office of Strategic Services
The Office of Strategic Services was a United States intelligence agency formed during World War II. It was the wartime intelligence agency, and it was a predecessor of the Central Intelligence Agency...
for a salary of $3,800 ($ today) a year. He was a Paramilitary Operations Officer in the part of the OSS that is now called the Special Activities Division
Special Activities Division
The Special Activities Division is a division in the United States Central Intelligence Agency's National Clandestine Service responsible for covert operations known as "special activities"...
. In September, he was assigned to the Secret Intelligence
Secret Intelligence Branch
The Secret Intelligence Branch of the United States' Office of Strategic Services was a wartime foreign intelligence service responsible for the collection of human intelligence from a network of field stations in Asia, Europe, and the Middle East....
branch of the OSS and given a place at the OSS Balkans desk. In this role, he parachuted into Yugoslavia to evaluate the various resistance groups operating against the Nazis to determine which was the strongest. He talked to both Draza Mihajlovic and Tito
Josip Broz Tito
Marshal Josip Broz Tito – 4 May 1980) was a Yugoslav revolutionary and statesman. While his presidency has been criticized as authoritarian, Tito was a popular public figure both in Yugoslavia and abroad, viewed as a unifying symbol for the nations of the Yugoslav federation...
and reviewed their forces, deciding that Tito had the stronger and better supported group. His evaluations were used to help determine the amount of support and aid to give each group. In late 1943, Berg was assigned to Project Larson, an OSS operation set up by OSS Chief of Special Projects John Shaheen. The stated purpose of the project was to kidnap Italian rocket
Rocket
A rocket is a missile, spacecraft, aircraft or other vehicle which obtains thrust from a rocket engine. In all rockets, the exhaust is formed entirely from propellants carried within the rocket before use. Rocket engines work by action and reaction...
and missile
Missile
Though a missile may be any thrown or launched object, it colloquially almost always refers to a self-propelled guided weapon system.-Etymology:The word missile comes from the Latin verb mittere, meaning "to send"...
specialists out of Italy and bring them to the U.S. However, there was another project hidden within Larson, called Project AZUSA, with the goal of interviewing Italian physicists
Physics
Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
to see what they knew about Werner Heisenberg
Werner Heisenberg
Werner Karl Heisenberg was a German theoretical physicist who made foundational contributions to quantum mechanics and is best known for asserting the uncertainty principle of quantum theory...
and Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker
Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker
Carl Friedrich Freiherr von Weizsäcker was a German physicist and philosopher. He was the longest-living member of the research team which performed nuclear research in Germany during the Second World War, under Werner Heisenberg's leadership...
. It was similar in scope and mission to the Alsos
Operation Alsos
Operation Alsos was an effort at the end of World War II by the Allies , branched off from the Manhattan Project, to investigate the German nuclear energy project, seize German nuclear resources, materials and personnel to further American research and to prevent their capture by the Soviets, and...
project.
Zürich
Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is located in central Switzerland at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich...
, Switzerland reached the OSS, and Berg was assigned the task of attending the lecture and determining "if anything Heisenberg said convinced him the Germans were close to a bomb
Nuclear weapon
A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission or a combination of fission and fusion. Both reactions release vast quantities of energy from relatively small amounts of matter. The first fission bomb test released the same amount...
." If Berg came to the conclusion that the Germans were close, he had orders to shoot Heisenberg; Berg determined that the Germans were not close. During his time in Switzerland, Berg became close friends with the physicist Paul Scherrer
Paul Scherrer
Paul Scherrer was a Swiss physicist. Born in Herisau, Switzerland, he studied at Göttingen, Germany, before becoming a lecturer there. Later, Scherrer became head of the Department of Physics at ETH Zürich....
. Berg returned to the United States on April 25, 1945, and resigned from the Strategic Services Unit
Strategic Services Unit
The Strategic Services Unit was an intelligence agency of the United States government which existed in the immediate post-World War II period. It was created from the Secret Intelligence and Counter-Espionage branches of the wartime Office of Strategic Services.Assistant Secretary of War John J...
, the successor to the OSS, in August. He was awarded the Medal of Freedom
Presidential Medal of Freedom
The Presidential Medal of Freedom is an award bestowed by the President of the United States and is—along with thecomparable Congressional Gold Medal bestowed by an act of U.S. Congress—the highest civilian award in the United States...
on October 10, but he rejected the award on December 2. His sister later accepted it on his behalf after his death.
After World War II
In 1946, former Chicago White Sox teammate Ted Lyons was the new manager of the White Sox, and offered Berg a coaching position. Berg declined. Boston Red Sox owner Thomas Yawkey, who was much closer to Berg when he played for Red Sox, matched Lyons' offer, but Berg still turned them down. Berg did not apply for a teaching position, or join a law firm.In 1951, Berg begged the CIA to send him to Israel. "A Jew must do this," he wrote in his notebook. The CIA rejected Berg's request. Still, in 1952 Berg was hired by the CIA to use his old contacts from World War II to gather information about the Soviet atomic science
Soviet atomic bomb project
The Soviet project to develop an atomic bomb , was a clandestine research and development program began during and post-World War II, in the wake of the Soviet Union's discovery of the United States' nuclear project...
. For the $10,000 plus expenses that Berg received, the CIA received nothing in return. The CIA officer who spoke with Berg when he returned from Europe said that he was "flaky". Berg continued to serve his assignment for the CIA until 1954, when his contract expired. The CIA chose not to renew it. Berg tried again to serve the CIA and the CIA again declined.
For the next 20 years, Berg had no real job, living off friends and relatives who put up with him because of his charisma. When they would ask what he did for a living, he would reply by putting his finger to his lips, giving them the impression that he was still a spy. A life-long bachelor, he lived with his brother Samuel for 17 years. According to Samuel, he became moody and snappish after the war and did not seem to care for much in life besides his books. His brother finally grew fed up with the arrangement and asked Moe to leave and even had eviction papers drawn up. After being evicted from his brother's home, Berg moved in with his sister Ethel in Belleville, New Jersey
Belleville, New Jersey
Belleville is a Township in Essex County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the township population was 35,926.-History:...
, where he remained for the rest of his life.
He received a handful of votes in Baseball Hall of Fame voting (four in 1958
Baseball Hall of Fame balloting, 1958
Elections to the Baseball Hall of Fame for 1958 followed a system established after the 1956 election. The Baseball Writers Association of America voted by mail to select from recent major league players and elected no one...
, and five in 1960
Baseball Hall of Fame balloting, 1960
Elections to Baseball Hall of Fame for 1960 followed a system established after the 1956 election. The Veterans Committee was meeting only in odd-number years . The Baseball Writers Association of America voted by mail to select from recent major league players and, same as in 1958, it elected no...
). When he was criticized for "wasting" his intellectual talent on the sport he loved, Berg replied, "I'd rather be a ballplayer than a justice on the U.S. Supreme Court".
Berg received many requests to write his memoirs, but turned them down; he almost wrote them in 1960, but he quit after the co-writer assigned to him confused him with Moe Howard
Moe Howard
Moses Harry Horwitz , known professionally as Moe Howard, was an American actor and comedian best known as the leader of The Three Stooges, the farce comedy team who starred in motion pictures and television for four decades...
of the Three Stooges
Three Stooges
The Three Stooges were an American vaudeville and comedy act of the early to mid–20th century best known for their numerous short subject films. Their hallmark was physical farce and extreme slapstick. In films, the Stooges were commonly known by their first names: "Moe, Larry, and Curly" and "Moe,...
.
Death
Moe Berg died on May 29, 1972, at age 70, from injuries sustained in a fall at home. A nurse at the NewarkNewark, New Jersey
Newark is the largest city in the American state of New Jersey, and the seat of Essex County. As of the 2010 United States Census, Newark had a population of 277,140, maintaining its status as the largest municipality in New Jersey. It is the 68th largest city in the U.S...
, New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
hospital where he died recalled his final words as, "How did the Mets
New York Mets
The New York Mets are a professional baseball team based in the borough of Queens in New York City, New York. They belong to Major League Baseball's National League East Division. One of baseball's first expansion teams, the Mets were founded in 1962 to replace New York's departed National League...
do today?" (They won.) His remains were cremated and spread over Mount Scopus
Mount Scopus
Mount Scopus , جبل المشهد , جبل الصوانة) is a mountain in northeast Jerusalem. In the wake of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Mount Scopus became a UN protected Jewish exclave within Jordanian-occupied territory until the Six-Day War in 1967...
in Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
.
Legacy
Berg was inducted into the National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in 1996, and the Baseball ReliquaryBaseball Reliquary
The Baseball Reliquary is a nonprofit, educational organization "dedicated to fostering an appreciation of American art and culture through the context of baseball history and to exploring the national pastime’s unparalleled creative possibilities." The Reliquary was founded in 1996 in Monrovia,...
's Shrine of the Eternals in 2000. His is the only baseball card
Baseball card
A baseball card is a type of trading card relating to baseball, usually printed on some type of paper stock or card stock. A card will usually feature one or more baseball players or other baseball-related sports figures...
on display at the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
.
In 1976, reporters Louis Kaufman of the Boston Globe and Tom Sewell of the Boston Herald joined writer Barbara Fitzgerald to write Moe Berg: Athlete, Scholar, Spy. In 1994 Nicholas Dawidoff wrote a biography, The Catcher Was a Spy: The Mysterious Life of Moe Berg.
Chuck Brodsky
Chuck Brodsky
Chuck Brodsky is an American musician and singer-songwriter currently living in Asheville, North Carolina. He is particularly known for his often humorous and political lyrics, as well as his songs about baseball, such as "The Ballad of Eddie Klepp" and "Moe Berg: The Song"...
, an American singer-songwriter, released a song entitled "Moe Berg: The Song" on his 1998 album Radio.
See also
- Jews and Baseball: An American Love StoryJews and Baseball: An American Love StoryJews and Baseball: An American Love Story is a 2010 American documentary film narrated by Academy Award winner Dustin Hoffman, written by Pulitzer Prize winner Ira Berkow, and directed by award-winning documentary filmmaker Peter Miller...
, 2010 documentary - List of select Jewish baseball players
- Operation AlsosOperation AlsosOperation Alsos was an effort at the end of World War II by the Allies , branched off from the Manhattan Project, to investigate the German nuclear energy project, seize German nuclear resources, materials and personnel to further American research and to prevent their capture by the Soviets, and...
External links
- SABR biography
- Moe Berg at Find a GraveFind A GraveFind a Grave is a commercial website providing free access and input to an online database of cemetery records. It was founded in 1998 as a DBA and incorporated in 2000.-History:...
- BR Bullpen profile
- BaseballLibrary profile and career highlights
- Annotated bibliography for Berg from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues
- Jewish Sports Hall of Fame bio
- "Secrets, Lies, and Atomic Spies"
- Jewish-American Hall of Fame
- Moe Berg Biography at J-Grit: The Internet Index of Tough Jews
- 1923 passport photo; Moe Berg
- Moe Berg Batted .243 for the White Sox and 1.000 for America