A second act that outweighs the first.
That is the story of Morris “Moe” Berg and his career that took many twists and turns.
Berg played 15 seasons in the major leagues from 1923-1939.
He played for the Brooklyn Robins, Chicago White Sox, Cleveland Indians, Washington Senators, and Boston Red Sox.
After his long playing career, he coached for the Red Sox for two seasons before ultimately choosing to lend his services to his country and serve in World War II.
He traded in his catcher’s mitt for a badge.
Berg served as a spy for the Office of Strategic Services during the war.
He was a paramilitary operations officer in the segment of the OSS that we have come to known today as the CIA Special Activities Division.
From hitting home runs to going on hyper-sensitive missions overseas to spy on Germany’s atomic bomb program, Berg lived a full life.
Not too many can say they were a professional athlete who was also in the CIA during WWII.
Berg can. And he is probably the only one that can stake that claim.
While baseball and its storied history are littered with different characters and backgrounds that will have you question the validity of it all, Berg’s is right up there.
No, he never drank 76 beers on a flight.
He never lost all his money investing in Arabian horses.
But he served as a high-ranking official for one of the world’s most secret organizations.
And that may be even more impressive than playing 15 years in the majors.
For those that knew Berg during his playing days, his second career act didn’t seem to be too much of a surprise.
Legendary baseball figure Casey Stengel, described Berg as “the strangest man ever to play baseball.”
While others referred to him as “the brainiest guy in baseball.”
No surprise from the man with the Princeton degree.
The Nuclear Museum has a detailed anecdote describing one of Berg’s missions, that seems straight out of a movie.
The passage is as follows:
“In December 1944, the OSS learned that renowned German physicist Werner Heisenberg was leaving Germany to give a lecture in Zurich.
“Berg was ordered to attend the conference and make contact with Heisenberg. If there were any indications that the Germans were working on the bomb, he was ordered to shoot Heisenberg (inside the lecture hall if necessary).
“On December 18, Berg attended the lecture and quietly sat with a pistol inside his pocket before a small audience of professors and graduate students. He had also been given a cyanide tablet.
“Heisenberg did not reveal anything about a German nuclear program during the lecture, but Berg was able to meet with Heisenberg’s Swiss host and OSS source Paul Scherrer and secure an invitation to dine with Heisenberg later that week.
“Berg listened carefully to the conversation that evening, but there was no indication that the Germans were working on an atomic bomb.”
It reads as though Berg was placed directly inside a James Bond movie.
In August of 1945, Berg resigned and turned in his badge.
He passed away at the age of 70 in 1972.
To this day, Berg can still claim to have had one of the craziest careers in modern world history.
