Moe Berg

3.1. Early Career (1923-1925)

Berg made his Major League debut with the Brooklyn Robins on June 27, 1923, playing shortstop. He handled five chances without an error and recorded a single in two at-bats. For the season, he batted .187 and committed 21 errors in 47 games, which constituted his only National League experience.

After the 1923 season, Berg embarked on his first trip abroad, sailing to Paris. He resided in the Latin Quarter in an apartment that overlooked the Sorbonne, where he enrolled in 32 different classes. It was in Paris that he developed his lifelong habit of reading multiple newspapers daily. He considered a newspaper "alive" until he finished reading it, refusing to let anyone else touch it; once finished, it was "dead" and available to others. In January 1924, instead of preparing for the upcoming baseball season, Berg toured Italy and Switzerland.

Upon returning, Berg was optioned to the Minneapolis Millers of the American Association by Robins manager Wilbert Robinson, as his hitting had not improved. Although initially threatening to quit baseball, he reported to the Millers by mid-April. He performed well as the regular third baseman, batting close to .330, but his average later dropped. In August 1924, he was lent to the Toledo Mud Hens. It was during this period that scout Mike González sent his famous telegram evaluating Berg: "Good field, no hit." Berg finished the season with a .264 average.

By April 1925, Berg began to show promise as a hitter with the Reading Keystones of the International League, batting .311 with 124 runs batted in. The Chicago White Sox acquired him for 6.00 K USD, bringing him to the big leagues the following year.

3.2. 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 in order to complete his first year at Columbia Law School. He did not join the White Sox until May 28, playing in 41 games and batting .221. He continued his law studies after the season, declining a larger offer from White Sox owner Charles Comiskey to attend spring training early in 1927. A professor arranged a leave of absence for Berg from law school for the 1928 season.

Berg spent the first three months of the 1927 season on the bench due to his late report. However, a series of injuries to White Sox catchers in August left player/manager Ray Schalk to select Berg for the position. Berg performed admirably, even catching for pitcher Ted Lyons against the formidable Yankees' Murderers' Row lineup, which included Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. Berg made a crucial defensive play, tagging out Joe Dugan at the plate, and Lyons secured a 6-3 victory. He caught eight more games that season.

To prepare for the 1928 season, Berg engaged in hard labor at a lumber camp in New York's Adirondack Mountains, reporting to spring training in excellent shape. By the end of the season, he had established himself as the starting catcher. In 1928, he led all American League catchers in caught-stealing percentage (60.9%), was third in double plays (8), and fifth in assists (52). At the plate, he batted .246 with a career-high 16 doubles.

Although he failed his Evidence course and did not graduate with his class in 1929, Berg passed the New York State bar exam. He retook the course and received his LL.B. on February 26, 1930. In 1929, he was second in the American League in both double plays (12) and assists (86) by a catcher, and fourth in caught-stealing percentage (47.7%). He had perhaps his best offensive season, hitting .287 with 47 RBIs.

On April 6, 1930, during an exhibition game, Berg tore a knee ligament, limiting him to just 20 games that season, where he batted .115. During the winter, he worked for the Wall Street law firm Satterlee and Canfield. The Cleveland Indians picked him up on April 2, 1931, but he played in only 10 games, recording just one hit.

The Indians released him in January 1932. However, Clark Griffith, owner of the Washington Senators, invited Berg to spring training. He made the team, playing in 75 games while not committing an error, and was second in the AL in double plays (9) and caught-stealing percentage (54.3%). When starting catcher Roy Spencer was injured, Berg stepped in, throwing out 35 baserunners while batting .236. Senators' outfielder Dave Harris once quipped about Berg's linguistic abilities, "Yeah, I know, and he can't hit in any of them."

3.3. First Trip to Japan

In the winter of 1932, retired ballplayer Herb Hunter arranged for Berg, Lefty O'Doul, and Ted Lyons to go to Japan to teach baseball seminars at Japanese universities. Beginning October 22, 1932, the trio visited universities belonging to the Tokyo Big6 Baseball League, including Meiji, Waseda, Rikkyo, Todai (Tokyo Imperial), Hosei, and Keio. When O'Doul and Lyons returned to the United States, Berg remained in Japan to explore. He then toured Manchuria, Shanghai, and Peking in China, followed by Indochina, Siam, India, Egypt, and Berlin, Germany, before returning home.

Despite his desire to return to Japan, Berg reported to the Senators' training camp on February 26, 1933. He played in 40 games, batting a disappointing .185. The Senators won the pennant but lost the World Series to the Giants. In 1934, with starting catcher Cliff Bolton holding out for more money, Berg became the starter. On April 22, Berg made his first error since 1932, ending an American League record of 117 consecutive errorless games. He was unconditionally released by the Senators on July 25 but was soon picked up by the Cleveland Indians after their starting catcher, Glenn Myatt, broke his ankle. Berg played sporadically until Frankie Pytlak was injured, making Berg the starting catcher again.

3.4. Second Trip to Japan

In 1934, Herb Hunter organized another All-Star tour of Japan, featuring baseball legends like Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Earl Averill, Charlie Gehringer, Jimmie Foxx, and Lefty Gomez. Although Berg was a mediocre, third-string catcher, he received a last-minute invitation to join the team. He had also secured a contract with Movietone News, a New York City newsreel company, to film sights during his trip, bringing a 16-mm Bell & Howell movie camera and an official letter from the company. When the team arrived in Japan, Berg gave a welcome speech in Japanese; he also was invited to address the legislature. He also conversed with the Emperor and Empress in Japanese when the team was granted an audience.

On November 29, 1934, while the rest of the team was playing in Omiya, Berg ostensibly went to St. Luke's International Hospital in Tsukiji, Tokyo, to visit the daughter of American Ambassador Joseph Grew. However, his true purpose was to ascend to the hospital's roof, one of Tokyo's tallest buildings, and film the city and port with his movie camera. He captured footage of Tokyo Bay, military ships, weapons factories, oil refineries, the Imperial Palace, other factories, and railway lines. He also filmed areas such as Musashino, Mitaka, Tanashi, Hoya, Funabashi, Narashino, Kawaguchi, and Matsudo. This intelligence, particularly his photos of the city, was later provided to American intelligence in 1942 for potential use in planning bombing raids. Although it was once thought his film might have helped Lieutenant Colonel Jimmy Doolittle plan the Doolittle Raid, the raid was conducted on April 18, 1942, well before Berg screened his footage for intelligence officers in the summer of 1942. He never actually saw the ambassador's daughter. While Berg was still in Japan, the Indians notified him of his unconditional release. He continued his travels to the Philippines, Korea, and Moscow in the Soviet Union.

3.5. Late Career and Coaching (1935-1941)

After his return to America, Berg was signed by the Boston 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 popular radio quiz show Information Please. He displayed a dazzling performance, answering questions on topics ranging from the etymology of words and names from Greek and Latin to historical events in Europe and the Far East and ongoing international conferences. Baseball Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis remarked that Berg had "in just thirty minutes... done more for baseball than I've done the entire time I've been commissioner." During his third appearance, Berg refused to answer what he felt were too many personal questions from moderator Clifton Fadiman and never appeared on the show again. Regular guest and sportswriter John Kieran later called Berg "the most scholarly professional athlete [he] ever knew."

After his playing career concluded, Berg served as a Red Sox coach in 1940 and 1941. He also contributed a widely admired essay, "Pitchers and Catchers," a valedictory piece reflecting on the meaning and playing of baseball, published in the September 1941 issue of The Atlantic Monthly. A 2018 profile in The New York Times described it as "still one of the most insightful works ever penned about the game."

His uniform numbers during his career included:

• 19 (1931, 1935)
• 27 (1932)
• 9 (1932)
• 10 (1933-1934)
• 31 (1934)
• 22 (1936-1939)

The following table summarizes Moe Berg's Major League Baseball batting statistics:

4.1. Pre-OSS Involvement

Following the attack on Pearl Harbor by Japan on December 7, 1941, Berg sought to contribute to the war effort. On January 5, 1942, he accepted a position with Nelson Rockefeller's Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs (OIAA). Nine days later, his father, Bernard, died. During the summer of 1942, Berg screened the footage he had shot of Tokyo Bay in 1934 for intelligence officers of the United States military. While there was speculation that his film might have aided Lieutenant Colonel Jimmy Doolittle in planning the Doolittle Raid, the raid occurred on April 18, 1942, well before Berg showed his footage.

From August 1942 to 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. They wanted to be assigned to locations where their talents would be put to better use.

4.2. Office of Strategic Services (OSS) Work

On August 2, 1943, Berg accepted a position with the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) Special Operations Branch (SO) for a salary of 3.80 K USD per year. This branch later evolved into the present-day CIA Special Activities Division. In September, he was assigned to the OSS Secret Intelligence branch (SI) and given a spot on the OSS SI Balkans desk. In this role, based in Washington, he remotely monitored the situation in Yugoslavia and assisted in preparing Slavic-Americans recruited by the OSS to go on dangerous parachute drop missions into Yugoslavia. His OSS code name was "Remus."

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 in Italy and bring them to the U.S. Another project hidden within Larson was called Project AZUSA, which had the goal of interviewing Italian physicists to learn what they knew about Werner Heisenberg and Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker. It was similar in scope and mission to the Alsos project. During the mission, Berg had a heated run-in in Italy with Alsos chief Boris Pash, a controversial army officer who played a major role in the stripping of the security clearance of Robert Oppenheimer.

From May to mid-December 1944, Berg hopped around Europe, interviewing physicists and trying to convince several to leave Europe and work in the United States. In November, news about Heisenberg giving a lecture in Zürich reached the OSS. Berg was assigned to attend the lecture, which took place on December 18, and determine "if anything Heisenberg said convinced him the Germans were close to a bomb." If Berg concluded that the Germans were close, he had orders to shoot Heisenberg; Berg determined that the Germans were not close. On orders direct from President Franklin Roosevelt, Berg persuaded Antonio Ferri, who had served as the head of the supersonic research program in Italy, to relocate to the United States and take part in supersonic aircraft development here. When Berg returned with Ferri, Roosevelt commented "I see that Moe Berg is still catching very well". During his time in Switzerland, Berg became close friends with physicist Paul Scherrer. Berg resigned from the OSS after the war, in January 1946.

4.3. Post-World War II Intelligence Work

In 1951, Berg appealed to the CIA (which replaced the OSS) to send him to the recently founded nation of Israel. "A Jew must do this", he wrote in his notebook. The CIA rejected Berg's request. But in 1952 Berg was hired by the CIA to use his old contacts from World War II to gather information about the Soviet atomic bomb project. For the 10.00 K USD plus expenses that Berg received, the CIA received nothing. The CIA officer who spoke with Berg when he returned from Europe said that he was "flaky".