How the “Brainiest Man in Baseball” Played a Key Role in World War II
Fifteen years in the major leagues—that would be the life story of many a person. But not for Morris “Moe” Berg. Dubbed “the professor” by teammates and sports journalists alike, Berg was fluent in seven languages and dazzled on the radio quiz show Information Please. After the Japanese invaded Pearl Harbor, Berg signed on with the American government and later participated in a number of covert operations, including one that assessed the Germans progress on the development of a nuclear bomb.
Moe Berg’s Early Life and Baseball Career
Born in New York City in 1902 to Bernard and Rose Berg, both Jewish, Moe Berg spent the first four years of his life just a few blocks from the storied Polo Grounds. In 1906, his father, a pharmacist, bought a business in West Newark and moved the family.
Berg started his organized baseball career in 1909, joining the Roseville Methodist Episcopal Church team. For the next ten years, he played under the pseudonym “Runt Wolfe” in order to avoid discrimination. Berg graduated early from high school (he had convinced his parents to let him start school at the age of 3 ½ ), where he had starred as a third baseman on the baseball team. Berg spent a year at NYU and transferred to Princeton, where he played first base on a powerhouse team that went through the season without a loss. While at Princeton, he also showed his academic prowess, graduating magna cum laude in modern languages (he studied seven while at Princeton).
Near the end of his time at Princeton, Berg attracted the attention of scouts from both the New York Giants and the Brookly Robins (who would become the Dodgers). Berg signed his first major league contract with the Robins in 1923. Over the next 15 years, he played for eight different teams, including five years each with the Chicago White Sox and the Boston Red Sox. His best season in the bigs was 1929, when he played 107 games for Chicago, hitting .287 with 101 hits and 47 RBIs.
Moe’s Academic Career
Throughout his life, Moe shared a passion for baseball and for learning. His academic career never slowed down, even as his baseball career developed. After his very first season in the major leagues, he traveled to Paris, where he enrolled in 32 classes at the Sorbonne.
In 1926, Berg notified White Sox management that he would miss all of spring training and the first two months of the season so that he could finish his first year at the law school at Columbia University. Berg later exercised his intellectual muscle on the radio program information, Please!, appearing four times and amazing listeners with his knowledge of literature, history, sports and philosophy.
The Trips to Japan and Berg’s Service to the American War Effort
In 1932, Berg joined other major leaguers Lefty O’Doul and Ted Lyons on a trip to Japan, where they were enlisted to lead baseball seminars at Japanese universities. Berg became infatuated with Japan and the Far East and stayed for some time after the others returned stateside.
Two years later, Berg joined a group of major league all-stars who went to Japan to play exhibition games against a team of Japanese all-stars. Berg had entered into a contract with Movietone News to take footage of his trip with a 16-mm movie camera. However, when Berg arrived in Tsukiji, he went to the roof of the city’s tallest building and filmed the surrounding area. He later provided that footage to American intelligence officers to be used in planned bombing raids.
Almost immediately after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Berg joined the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs, an American intelligence agency. In 1943, Berg was assigned to the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), initially working at the Balkans desk and operating under the code name “Remus.” Later that year, he participated in an operation to kidnap Italian rocket and missile scientists and bring them to the United States. Berg was specifically tasked with interviewing European physicists and persuading them to come to the United States and work on the Manhattan Project.
In late 1944, the OSS sent Berg to a lecture in Zurich given by noted German physicist Werner Heisenberg, who was rumored to be working on an atomic bomb. As part of his assignment, Berg was to listen to the lecture (in German) and assess whether anything Heisenberg said indicated that the Germans were close to having the capability to detonate a nuclear bomb. If Berg determined that they were, he had orders to assassinate Heisenberg. Berg reported that Heisenberg had given no such indication.
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