Moe Berg’s Baseball Card Is on Display at the CIA Headquarters for a Reason
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Primary league baseball back-up catcher Morris “Moe” Berg also had a law degree and spoke seven languages, including German and Japanese, which made him an asset in the spy business. After retiring from baseball in 1942, he joined the OSS’s Secret Intelligence Branch. Berg collected information about Nazi atomic-power experiments in German-occupied Norway. Berg was reportedly involved in a plot to assassinate Nazi atom-bomb research program director and physicist Werner Heisenberg, but the former baseballer concluded the probability of a Nazi atomic bomb being developed shortly was minor, so the execution was called off. Berg is the only major league player to have a baseball card on display in Langley, Va., at the CIA headquarters.