Moe Berg was most likely the most unusual, mysterious baseball player of all time. A 15-year Major League catcher, he was also an esteemed linguistic scholar and a United States spy. Presented is the opportunity to possess a fascinating trove of thirty-one (31) items of Berg ephemera, all from the personal estate of Moe Berg.

Born Morris Berg in New York City in 1902, Moe grew up in Newark, New Jersey. Berg attended Princeton University, where he was a modern language major and received a B.A. (magna cum laude). He also played shortstop on the Princeton baseball team. Berg broke into the Majors as an infielder with the Brooklyn Robins (Dodgers) of the National League in 1913. After his single season with Brooklyn, Berg was sent to the minor leagues and resurfaced as a back-up infielder with the Chicago White Sox in 1926. Because of injuries to the White Sox catching staff in 1927, Berg became a catcher and transitioned to the backstop role. Throughout most of his playing career, he was a second or third string receiver. While only batting a lifetime .243, with merely six home runs, Berg was noted as a superior defensive catcher and an outstanding handler of pitchers with a strong arm. In addition to Brooklyn and the Chicago White Sox, Berg also played on the Cleveland Indians, Washington Senators, and Boston Red Sox in his career ending in 1939. In his playing years, Berg made two baseball trips to Japan. His first trip was in 1932, mainly instructional, as he and fellow Major Leaguers Lefty O'Doul and Ted Lyons toured Japanese Universities. In Berg's second Japan trip, in 1934, he was part of a group of American League stars who toured Japan, playing exhibition games against Japanese teams. In this time, Berg made a secret trip away from the team, using a personal movie camera to film strategic sites in Japan that Berg thought would be useful to the United States military should war break out between the U.S. and Japan in the future. Later, during World War II, Berg spied for the U.S. for the Office of Strategic Services, which after World War II morphed into the Central Intelligence Agency. The O.S.S. and the C.I.A. used Berg because of his knowledge of languages, which included at least seven languages of which he had mastery. Part of Berg's World War II spying involved attending a physics lecture by German theoretical physicist Werner Heisenberg - the head of the German nuclear weapons program - in which Berg was spying for the U.S. to determine if Germany was close to having an atomic bomb. Although Berg was occasionally employed by the C.I.A. after World War II, he was mostly unemployed and depended on the support of his family and friends.

The offered lot: 1) An 8x10.4" photocopy of a January 3, 1944, letter from the United States Office of Scientific Research and Development confirming Berg's duty to work with the Office of Strategic Services (O.S.S.) in which Berg was "to acquire all possible intelligence regarding enemy activity on the special scientific subjects with which you have been charged." The letter shows the photocopy of the signature of Vannevar Bush, the Director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development. 2) A 2.75x3.75" black & white private photo of Berg and Swiss Nobel Prize winning physicist Paul Scherrer; 3) Twenty-three (23) bills of foreign money that Berg saved as souvenirs of his travels abroad, including bills from Germany, Japan, and Mexico, with some of the bills having machine-printed dates of 1944. 4) A handwritten telegram to Rose Berg (his mother) dated Feb. 1, 1945. Moe has signed with his initials "MB." 5) A Princeton University Class of 1923 Directory. 6) Several cards and postcards sent to him - including a postcard sent to Berg's home in Newark from Nobel Prize winner Paul Scherrer; a signed Christmas card from Major Leaguer Ted Lyons, and more. Overall, the individual pieces are in mostly VG condition, and the items in this collection have an intriguing connection to a legendary baseball man of mystery.

Estimated domestic USA shipping cost only. Does not include handling or insurance: $31.04 Please feel free to contact us for a more accurate shipping cost.