Roy Exum: Happy Birthday, Mr. Berg

  • Wednesday, March 4, 2015
  • Roy Exum
Roy Exum
Roy Exum

This past Monday we should have closed the Post Office, let kids out of school, and lowered our flags to half-mast. March 2 is the anniversary of Moe Berg’s birthday and the legendary Casey Stengel once said Moe was “the strangest man ever to play baseball.” Moe played major league baseball for 16 years, finishing with the Boston Red Sox in 1939 and a lifetime batting average of .243.

Moe was also called “the brainiest player in baseball.” He could speak 15 languages fluently, graduated from Princeton magna cum laude, got a law degree from Columbia, and during one off-season he studied at the Sorbonne in Paris where he learned Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Arabic, Portuguese and Hungarian -- all at the same time.

Mr.

Berg would read up to 10 newspapers every day. Until he would read one, he called it “live” and would let no one touch it. After he had read a paper, it would become “dead” and he would let his teammates read it. One time when Moe was playing with the Washington Senators, a reporter informed outfielder Dave Harris that Berg could speak in over 10 languages and Harris quipped, “Yeah, I know, but he can’t hit in any of ‘em.”

Believe it or not, the thing only a handful of people knew until long after Moe Berg died in 1972 was that baseball was just a ruse. Oh, he dearly loved to play – at Princeton he and the second baseman would discuss game strategy in Latin if an opposing player was on base. But the reason this nation’s highest civilian honor – The Medal of Freedom – hangs on display at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown is because Moe Berg – primarily a back-up catcher -- was in fact a phenomenal spy.

In 1934, when the first scent of World War II was in the air, Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig and some other players went to baseball-crazy Japan on tour. One day Moe put on a kimono and took flowers to the daughter of an American diplomat at St. Luke Hospital, which was the tallest building in Tokyo. Inside the huge bouquet was a hidden Bell & Howell movie camera.

The flowers never got delivered. Instead Moe spent the morning on the hospital roof, filming the harbor, railway yards, military centers and major roads – footage that would later prove invaluable to Jimmy Doolittle’s famous raid eight years later.

Because of his clandestine work, we know more about when he played for the Cleveland Indians than when – at age 41 – he parachuted into occupied Yugoslavia and, based on his report, Winston Churchill swung the allies’ support to Tito.

That same year he slipped into German-occupied Norway and, with the help of the underground, located a secret heavy-water plant where Germany was trying to build an atomic bomb. Within days R.A.F. bombers destroyed it.

Not long after that the Allied Forces learned Germany’s leading physicist Werner Heisenberg was speaking in Switzerland so Berg, posing as a Swiss graduate student, got past the SS guards and copped a seat on the front row. In his pocket he had a pistol and a cyanide capsule and his orders were that if he thought the Germans were close to building an atomic bomb, he should shoot and kill Heisenberg before taking the pill himself.

Moe listened closely to the speech, determined Germany wasn’t as close to an A-bomb and congratulated the speaker on his lecture rather than kill him. Moe even had the brass to walk with Heisenberg, a Nobel Laureate, back to his hotel as the two enjoyed a friendly conversation. After his report was given to Churchill and President Franklin Roosevelt, the president smiled and said, “Give my regards to the catcher.”

After the war he was an instant choice for the Medal of Freedom for his exploits but he quietly refused to accept it due to the fact it would shine light on his clandestine activity and might endanger too many people. So it was presented to his sister after he died and hangs today at Cooperstown.

At Langley, the only baseball card on display at the Central Intelligence Agency headquarters is of Moe Berg, who was once asked why he wasted his enormous intellect on baseball and replied, “I’d rather be a ball player than a Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.”

Upon his death Mr. Berg’s ashes were scattered over Mount Scopus in Israel but we should never forget men like Moe Berg on their birthdays, this despite the notion that our fabled hero couldn’t hit in any language.

royexum@aol.com

A baseball card like this one is on display at the CIA headquarters in northern
Virginia.
A baseball card like this one is on display at the CIA headquarters in northern Virginia.
Latest Headlines
Opinion
Democratic View On Top State Senate Issues - March 18, 2024
  • 3/18/2024

Campbell bill seeks to save lives by studying suicide trends in Tennessee 3 p.m. Senate Regular Calendar — SB 1787 , by Sen. Heidi Campbell, would require state health officials to produce ... more

The Odor Of Mendacity - And Response (2)
  • 3/16/2024

The Fulton County judge, Scott McAfee, overseeing the Fani Willis prosecution of Donald Trump and eighteen other defendants has spoken. In response to a motion by defendants to remove Willis ... more

Capitol Report From State Rep. Greg Vital For March 15
  • 3/15/2024

General Assembly confirms new Tennessee State Supreme Justice Members of the General Assembly confirmed the appointment of Mary L. Wagner to the Tennessee Supreme Court in a joint session ... more