MOE BERG REMEMBERED: Hardcore baseball fans tell me that Moe Berg was never more than a middling major league baseball catcher, playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers (then called the Robins), the White Sox, the Indians, the Washington Senators, and the Red Sox.  But Berg, who was born on this day in 1902, was many other things too … a coach for the Red Sox, a writer for the Atlantic Monthly, a magna cum laude graduate of Princeton, a graduate of Columbia law school, and a quiz show phenomenon. He was also fluent in six languages and had some knowledge of a dozen others.

But the most astonishing role Berg ever played was that of spy. It started innocently enough. During the early 1930s, Berg was selected to go to Japan twice to promote the game of baseball. On the first trip, he stayed longer than the other players and got to know something of the country and the language. The second trip was supposed to be for all-star types—including Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. But Berg got to go along, because he could give speeches in Japanese. While there, he bluffed his way up the top of one of Tokyo’s tallest buildings with a movie camera hidden under his kimono and shot film footage of the city, including extensive shots of its industrial areas and its harbor. That footage was later a valuable contribution to the war effort.

During WWII, Berg joined the Office of Strategic Services Special Operations Branch (what is now the CIA’s Special Activities Division). Among his exploits, he was parachuted into Nazi-dominated Yugoslavia to assess the various resistance groups operating within that area and to make recommendations to the U.S. government about which group or groups to support. Oh … and he was a trained assassin.

The CIA displays Berg’s baseball card at its headquarters.  And Hollywood recently made a movie about him (though, alas, you can’t make a movie these days about a historical figure without speculating about your subject’s sexuality.)