Moe Berg, Baseball's Scholar and Spy

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Moe Berg via New York Public Library.

Morris "Moe" Berg played for multiple Major League Baseball teams in the late 1920s and 1930s. Then, during World War II, he worked as a spy. In this episode, Christine discusses Berg's unusual life and career trajectory.

Podcaster: Christine

Further Reading

Moe Berg, “Pitchers and Catchers,” from Baseball: A Literary Anthology, The Library of America, (2002): 165–177. (originally published in Atlantic Monthly, September 1941).

Ralph Berger, “Moe Berg,” via Society for American Baseball Research.

Nicholas Dawidoff, The Catcher Was a Spy: The Mysterious Life of Moe Berg, Vintage, (1995).

--, “The Fabled Moe,” The American Scholar, 63:3 (Summer 1994): 433-439.

Bruce Fretts, “Who Was Moe Berg? A Spy, a Big-League Catcher and an Enigma,” New York Times, (21 June 2018).

Moe Berg Medal of Freedom at the National Baseball Hall of Fame Museum.  Plus, read the citation here.

"Moe Berg Appears Tonight in Radio Quiz Program," Chicago Daily Tribune, (17 October, 1939). 

"Moe Berg, Red Sox, Gets Job as Envoy: Linguist Plans a Tour of Latin America for the Rockefeller Office -- His Father Dies." New York Times, (15 January 1942).

"White Sox Get Moe Berg," New York Times, (16 September 1925). 

Images

Boston Red Sox Catchers, (1937), via New York Public Library.

Moe Berg via New York Public Library.

Moe Berg Looking in an Artillery Gun Sight, (1940-1942), via New York Public Library.

Music: "Evening Melodrama" by Kevin Macleod (www.incompetech.com)

Boston Red Sox Catchers, (1937), via New York Public Library. Berg is on the far left.

Moe Berg Looking in an Artillery Gun Sight, (1940-1942), via New York Public Library.