Morris berg gay

If he were a Hall of Famer like Babe Ruth or Lou Gehrig…well, for one, you’d already know who he was — haha! In fact, there was only one year, in 1929, when Moe played more than 100 games.

Oh, and as a quick side note, the nickname mentioned in the movie, Murderers’ Row, that was one for the 1920s Yankees’ lineup that many historians consider to be the best team in the history of baseball.

That’s also where the OSS comes back into the picture, because Moe and some of his colleagues at the OCIAA knew the OSS was looking for people like them — people who could blend into a foreign country, gather information, and then disappear.

Remember when I mentioned the character of Jerry Fredericks was a fictional character? A big part of that was due to the fact that Moe Berg wasn’t very good at close, personal relationships.

In fact, he shied away from them.

When he gets assigned to kill Werner Heisenberg and Germany’s supposed plans to make an atomic bomb, Moe gets forced to bid adieu to Estella. Berg had studied up on physics and could hold his own in a conversation. As he explained to her, the footage was going to be useful for the pilots who were going to bomb Tokyo. But it’d make sense for Moe Berg to go by a fake name while he was investigating the Nazi atomic program.

Did he get as close as pulling a pistol on Heisenberg before making that decision?

On May 29th, 1972, at 70 years old, Moe fell at home. Even though they manage to remain in touch after the former baseball catcher departs from the United States, they don’t get together. Following Victory in Europe (VE) Day at the end of World War II, Berg returned to the U.S. and resigned from the OSS.  He was awarded the Medal of Freedom in 1945, but declined it when he was told he could not divulge his secret war missions.

I think he wanted children. If you’re a baseball fan, you’ll get a sense of how good he was offensively with his career stat line:

• G: 663
• AB: 1,813
• R: 150
• H: 441
• BA: .243
• HR: 6
• RBI: 206
• SB: 12

Granted, those aren’t defensive stats, but you get the idea.

You can get a sense for how often he played by looking at his at bats.

But we’ll get to Ellery in a bit, because, in truth, Moe didn’t go to the OSS first — he tried the FBI first. It took place over the course of the entire summer of 1942. That’s on the northeastern side of Japan.

For some reason, Moe Berg instead decided to leave the team and head off to St. Luke’s Hospital in Tsukiji — which is located near Tokyo bay.

Germany invaded Poland in 1939 to begin a conflict that would turn into World War II, President Roosevelt had a growing concern over the lack of intelligence in the US government.

So, he tapped Bill Donovan to come up with a plan for a US intelligence organization based on the UK’s MI6. He did, and the British were instrumental in helping set up the organization, including providing a lot of training and information leading up to President Roosevelt’s military order to establish the organization on June 13th, 1942.

But that’s getting a little ahead of our story.

In fact, there’s a moment where Joe says he’s been asking Moe to hang up his cleats for two years to go into coaching.

For this scene, though, the conversation turns to an upcoming trip to Japan for some exhibition games after the season ends.

Moe asks who’s going.

Joe says it’ll be Murderers’ Row: Ruth, Gehrig, Averill, Gehringer, Gomez…

Moe interrupts him, “Am I the only bum?”

Joe laughs, saying that they like the whole Professor Berg thing.

Heisenberg had won the 1932 Nobel Prize in physics. When they arrived, Moe shocked both his teammates and his hosts by giving the welcome speech himself in fluent Japanese. 

In 1939, Moe Berg made several appearances on a radio Quiz Show, Information Please, putting on an impressive and charming performance.  He became known by sportswriters as that eccentric, ‘scholar athlete,’ an unusual combination to say the least.  Fans called him the professor, obviously the strangest man ever to play the game of baseball. 

He was indeed an odd duck – a loner, well-dressed dandy, and definitely a know-it-all.  Despite a lengthy affair with a woman in New York, they never married.   There were quiet rumors that ‘bachelor’ Moe was secretly a closeted homosexual.

That was on January 14th, 1942.