(Jewish Group) This Veterans Day Remember This Jewish Dodger

Fans of the Los Angeles Dodgers no doubt consider Freddie Freeman a hero for his MVP performance in the World Series. But with Veterans Day approaching, all Americans should take a moment to appreciate the valor of a former Dodger less well-known to today’s baseball aficionados — Moe Berg, a catcher who spied for the U.S. during World War II.

Morris Berg was born to Russian-Jewish immigrant parents in a tenement on East 121st Street in Manhattan on March 2, 1902. At seven, demonstrating a passion for both the game and secret identities, he played for a Methodist Church team under the pseudonym Runt Wolfe.

After graduating Barringer High School, Berg played shortstop for Princeton, where he majored in modern languages. He and another teammate would communicate on the field in Latin.

As Nicholas Dawidoff details in “The Catcher Was a Spy,” his definitive biography of Berg, after graduating magna cum laude in 1923, Berg was signed by the Brooklyn Dodgers (known then as the Robins) and batted .186 in 49 games. St. Louis Cardinals scout Mike Gonzalez notoriously coined the phrase “good field, no hit” after watching him play.

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From a few years ago...

Story Of Moe Berg, Baseball Player Turned WWII Spy, Set To Hit The Big Screen

Moe Berg was, as a baseball player, unexceptional. He played in the Majors, bouncing around the league for between 1923-1939, but he was a career .243 hitter, and is the inspiration for this ignominious, traditional baseball scouting assessment: “Good field, no hit.”

What a scouting report might have missed: Berg had degrees from Princeton and Columbia Law, studied at the Sorbonne during one off-season, and spoke seven languages (“But he can’t hit in any of them,” a teammate once said). A diligent scout might have found that, but here’s something they certainly wouldn’t have uncovered: Moe Berg was to become a spy for the O.S.S.

That’s the premise for The Catcher Was A Spy, a big screen adaptation of the biography of the same name, by Nicholas Dawidoff (reviewed here by Jordan Hoffman). Directed by Ben Lewin (The Sessions, among others), the film debuted at Sundance last month, and stars Paul Rudd as Berg.

Berg was born to Russian-Jewish immigrant parents in a cold-water tenement on East 121st Street in Manhattan, hardly the typical starting point for a professional baseball player. But after the Berg’s moved to Newark, he began to excel at the sport, and eventually became a stand-out shortstop at Princeton (graduating magna cum laude, of course).

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