Moe Berg

Morris Berg

Morris "Moe" Berg (March 2, 1902 – May 29, 1972), was an American catcher and coach in Major League Baseball who later served as a spy for the OSS during World War II. Although he played 15 seasons in the major leagues, almost entirely for four American League teams, Berg was never more than an average player, usually used as a backup catcher, and was better known for being "the brainiest guy in baseball" than for anything he accomplished in the game. Casey Stengel once described Berg as "the strangest man ever to play baseball".

Quotes

• Good fielding and pitching, without hitting, or vice versa, is like Ben Franklin's half a pair of scissors -ineffectual.
  • September 1941, Atlantic Monthly Pitchers and Catchers

• The players are not interested in the score, but merely in how many runs are necessary to tie and to win. They take nothing for granted in baseball. The idea is to win. The game's the thing.
  • September 1941, Atlantic Monthly Pitchers and Catchers

• Ty was an intellectual giant. He was the most fascinating personality I ever met in baseball. To him, a ball game wasn't a mere athletic contest. It was a knock-'em-down, crush-'em, relentless war. He was their enemy, and if they got in his way he ran right over them.
  • Moe Berg, interview in Ty Cobb (1975) by John McCallum, p. xii - ISBN 0-275-22520-8

• Maybe I’m not in the Cooperstown Baseball Hall of Fame like so many of my baseball buddies, but I’m happy I had the chance to play pro ball and am especially proud of my contributions to my country. Perhaps I could not hit like Babe Ruth, but I spoke more languages than he did.
  • As quoted by Cia.gov prior to his death in (1972)

About Moe Berg

• There's Moe Berg over there. He knows 12 languages and is a pretty fair hitter, but none of them languages is going to help him when he's up there at the plate. You've gotta know the pitcher's language, and I was teethed on a baseball bat.
  
  Good luck, Moe; but all them seven languages you know ain't gonna do you no good now.
  
  I got the world's smartest roomie. He can speak seven languages but he can't hit in any of them. I ain't learned him no hittin' and he ain't learned me no learnin'.
  • Dave Harris, as quoted, respectively, in "Hitters Are Born, Not Made, Say Dave, Minus Smile" by Shirley L. Povich, in The Washington Post (June 5, 1933); in "This Morning" by Povich, in The Washington Post (May 9, 1947); and in "Roommates in Sports" by Bob Addie, in The Washington Post (August 8, 1961)