The following are the baseball events of the year 1902 throughout the world.  

Champions[link]

Major League Baseball[link]

• American League: Philadelphia Athletics
• National League: Pittsburgh Pirates

1902 World Series: Not played due to AL-NL war over player contracts.

Other champions[link]

Statistical leaders[link]

American League[link]

• Home Runs: Socks Seybold, Philadelphia Athletics: 16
• Batting average: Nap Lajoie, Philadelphia Athletics: .378
• Wins: Cy Young, Boston Americans: 32-11

National League[link]

• Home Runs: Tommy Leach, Pittsburgh Pirates: 6
• Batting average: Ginger Beaumont, Pittsburgh Pirates: .357
• Wins: Jack Chesbro, Pittsburgh Pirates: 28-6

Major league baseball final standings[link]

American League final standings[link]

Note: The Baltimore Orioles of 1902 became the New York Highlanders in 1903.

National League final standings[link]

Events[link]

January–March[link]

• March 12 - Mike Donlin of the Baltimore Orioles is arrested for assault. Donlin will plead guilty and serve a 6 month jail sentence.

April[link]

• April 19 - Bob Ewing of the Cincinnati Reds, in his Major League debut, ties a National League record by walking 7 batters in one inning.
• April 26 - Addie Joss of the Cleveland Bronchos throws a one-hitter in his Major League debut.

May[link]

• May 13 - All nine players for the Cincinnati Reds collect at least 2 hits in a 24-2 thrashing of the Philadelphia Phillies.
• May 16 - Dummy Hoy of the Cincinnati Reds bats against Dummy Taylor of the New York Giants in the first inning. It is the first time that two deaf-mutes have faced one another.
• May 24 - Bill Bradley of the Cleveland Bronchos sets an American league record by homering in his 4th consecutive game.
• May 30 - Roger Bresnahan of the Baltimore Orioles hits 2 inside-the-park home runs against the Cleveland Bronchos.

June[link]

• June 2 - The Cleveland Bronchos commit 6 errors in one inning against the Baltimore Orioles. It will be the most errors by a team in one inning for the entire 20th century.
• June 3 - Mike O'Neill of the St. Louis Cardinals connects for the first ever pinch-hit grand slam home run.
• June 15 - Future major leaguer Nig Clarke goes 8-8, all home runs, as his Corsicana team blasts Texarcana 51-3 in a Texas League game. Corsicana collects 53 hits, including 21 homers, in playing the game in a park where right field is only 210' from home plate.
• June 30 - The Cleveland Bronchos becomes the first American League team to hit three consecutive home runs in one inning, as Nap Lajoie, Charlie Hickman and Bill Bradley connect in the sixth off St. Louis Browns pitcher Jack Harper, with all the homers landing in the left field bleachers at St. Louis. The last two come on the first pitch thrown, while Cleveland win the game 17–2. The feat was last done in the National League on May 10, 1894.

July[link]

• July 1 - Rube Waddell of the Philadelphia Athletics faces the minimum 27 batters in pitching a two-hit shutout against the Baltimore Orioles. Waddell strikes out the side three times in the game, once on nine pitches. Billy Gilbert, Harry Howell and John Cronin are the strikeout victims in all three innings.
• July 8 - John McGraw signs a contract to become the manager of the New York Giants. McGraw will remain as the Giants manager for the next 30 years, winning ten National League pennants and three World Series.
• July 8 - In his first game for the Philadelphia Athletics, Danny Murphy arrives late in the second inning and is immediately put in the game. He proceeds to go 6-for-6 at the plate, which includes a grand slam off of Cy Young, and handles 12 chances without committing an error at second base.
• July 17 - The Baltimore Orioles, with only five available players, are forced to forfeit a game to the St. Louis Browns and the American League takes over control of the team for the remainder of the season. The Orioles will move to New York for the 1903 season.
• July 25 - At West Side Park, Cincinnati Reds outfielder Cy Seymour sets a major-league record by hitting four sacrifice flies in a 6–1 victory over the Chicago Orphans. Seymour will be tied but never topped.

August[link]

• August 13 - Harry Davis of the Philadelphia Athletics steals second base with teammate Dave Fultz on third in an attempt to score Fultz. When he draws no throw, Davis then steals back to first base on the next pitch. He then steals second again, this time drawing the throw, scoring Fultz.
• August 14 - Tommy Leach of the Pittsburgh Pirates hit only 13 home runs over the fence in a career of over 2100 games. On this day, however, he does it twice against the Boston Beaneaters. Leach will go on to win the National League home run crown in 1902 with 6.
• August 18 - Hal O'Hagan, of the Rochester Broncos, turns professional baseball's first unassisted triple play against Jersey City in a minor league game.
• August 19 - Kip Selbach of the Baltimore Orioles ties a record by committing 5 errors from the outfield in one game.

September[link]

• September 1 - The Chicago Cubs famed trio of Joe Tinker, Johnny Evers and Frank Chance appear in the Chicago lineup for the first time together.
• September 10 - Rube Waddell of the Philadelphia Athletics, making only 6 relief appearance all season, does it twice in a double-header against the Baltimore Orioles and gets the victory in both games.
• September 20 - Nixey Callahan of the Chicago White Sox pitches a no-hitter against the Detroit Tigers.

October–December[link]

• October 2 - The Boston Beaneaters defeat the New York Giants 2-1 in 14 innings. The game produces 8 runners thrown out attempting to steal, 3 pick-offs, 3 double-plays and 2 runners thrown out at the plate.

Births[link]

January[link]

• January 2 - Nick Dumovich
• January 2 - Ray Jacobs
• January 3 - Jim McLaughlin
• January 4 - Ted Odenwald
• January 6 - Bob Barnes
• January 7 - Cliff Knox
• January 7 - Al Todd
• January 14- Smead Jolley
• January 16 - Joe Connell
• January 16 - Pip Koehler
• January 26 - Johnny Frederick
• January 27 - Ollie Tucker
• January 28 - Pat Crawford
• January 28 - Jackie Gallagher
• January 29 - Elmer Eggert

February[link]

• February 9 - Don Hankins
• February 9 - Julie Wera
• February 12 - Kiddo Davis
• February 27 - Roy Hutson

March[link]

• March 2 - Moe Berg
• March 4 - Emmett McCann
• March 15 - Fred Bennett
• March 16 - Jake Flowers
• March 18 - Squire Potter
• March 23 - Johnny Moore

April[link]

• April 2 - Bill Yancey
• April 7 - Buck Redfern
• April 8 - Carl Husta
• April 13 - Ben Cantwell
• April 18 - Bob Linton
• April 21 - Lefty Weinert
• April 22 - Ray Benge
• April 26 - Steve Slayton
• April 28 - Red Lucas
• April 30 - Bill Deitrick

May[link]

• May 2 - Freddy Sale
• May 3 - Ralph Michaels
• May 7 - Sal Gliatto
• May 9 - Wally Dashiell
• May 12 - Dutch Henry
• May 13 - Hal Neubauer
• May 16 - Watty Clark
• May 16 - Howie Fitzgerald
• May 21 - Earl Averill
• May 22 - Dick Jones
• May 22 - Al Simmons
• May 26 - Herb Thomas
• May 30 - Lou McEvoy

June[link]

• June 5 - Charlie Gooch
• June 6 - Fresco Thompson
• June 9 - Lee Dunham
• June 11 - Ernie Nevers
• June 20 - Wayland Dean
• June 23 - Leon Pettit
• June 25 - Ralph Erickson
• June 30 - Hal Smith

July[link]

• July 1 - Kent Greenfield
• July 5 - Frank Naleway
• July 7 - Art Merewether
• July 7 - Ted Radcliffe
• July 13 - Bill Lasley
• July 29 - Luther Roy

August[link]

• August 1 - Howard Freigau
• August 1 - Joe Klinger
• August 3 - Joe Sprinz
• August 3 - Doug Taitt
• August 4 - Homer Blankenship
• August 4 - Bill Hallahan
• August 4 - Al Moore
• August 24 - Jack Blott
• August 24 - Jimmy Hudgens
• August 28 - Art Jacobs
• August 28 - Wally Roettger
• August 30 - Pete Cote

September[link]

• September 3 - Bill Moore
• September 7 - Cleo Carlyle
• September 8 - Ernie Orsatti
• September 15 - Rap Dixon
• September 15 - Russ Young
• September 19 - Jim Begley
• September 19 - Bruce Connatser
• September 22 - Ollie Marquardt
• September 25 - Pat Malone
• September 28 - Leon Chagnon
• September 30 - Blackie Carter

October[link]

• October 8 - Paul Schreiber
• October 9 - Kenny Hogan
• October 9 - Jimmy Welsh
• October 12 - Stew Bolen
• October 15 - Evar Swanson
• October 18 - Charlie Berry
• October 22 - Rusty Yarnall
• October 27 - Jim Keesey

November[link]

• November 9 - Mike Kelly
• November 11 - Ownie Carroll
• November 14 - Gil Paulsen
• November 15 - Jay Partridge
• November 19 - Joe Palmisano
• November 20 - Augie Prudhomme
• November 24 - Cloy Mattox

December[link]

• December 1 - Red Badgro
• December 3 - Al Spohrer
• December 4 - Chuck Corgan
• December 2 - Pee-Wee Wanninger
• December 15 - Frank Watt
• December 18 - Les Burke
• December 18 - Joe Buskey
• December 20 - Carl Yowell
• December 23 - Max Rosenfeld
• December 26 - Bill Cronin

Deaths[link]

• February 1 - Bill Sharsig, 47, Co-owner, general manager, business manager and on-field manager of the American Association Philadelphia Athletics.

• February 4 - Tom Hernon, 35, outfielder for the 1897 Chicago Colts.

• February 16 - Tom O'Meara, 29, catcher and first baseman of the Cleveland Spiders from 1895 to 1896.

• March 19 - Tom Burns, 44, infielder for the Chicago White Stockings/Colts (1890-1890) and Pittsburgh Pirates, who also managed Pittsburgh (1892) and the Chicago Orphans (1898–1899).

• March 22 - Johnny Ryan, 48, baseball pioneer who played in the early years of the National League for the Philadelphia White Stockings (1873), Baltimore Canaries (1874), New Haven Elm Citys (1875), Louisville Grays (1876) and Cincinnati Reds (1877).

• March 27 - Tom Morrison, 32, infielder/outfielder who played from 1895 through 1896 for the Louisville Colonels.

• March 7 - Pud Galvin, 45, pitcher who amassed record 361 victories, including two no-hitters, primarily with Buffalo and Pittsburgh; career marks in games (697), innings (5941) and shutouts (57) were all records as well.

• April 4 - Charlie Sweeney, 38, pitcher the Providence Grays who left to play for the Union Association champs, the St. Louis Maroons. Between the two teams, he had a 41-15 win-loss record. By leaving the Grays, he left them without another starting pitcher, which allowed Charles Radbourn to win 59 games.

• April 5 - Dave Eggler, 52, center fielder for 11 seasons, including five in the short-lived National Association, who batted .272 in 576 career games.

• April 18 - George Grossart, 21, leftfielder for the 1901 Boston Beaneaters.

• May 2 - Bill Greenwood, 45, second baseman for five teams from 1882 to 1890.

• June 12 - Tim Donahue, 32, catcher who played from 1891 to 1902 with the Boston Reds, Chicago Colts/Orphans and Washington Senators, hitting .236 in 466 games in part of eight seasons.

• June 23 - John Firth, 47, pitcher who played briefly for the 1884 Richmond Virginians of the American Association.

• July 15 - Pat Whitaker, 36, pitcher for the early Baltimore Orioles in 1888 and 1889.

• July 27 - Packy Dillon, , catcher for the 1875 St. Louis Red Stockings.

• August 30 - Rome Chambers, 26, pitcher for the 1900 Boston Beaneaters.

• September 23 - George Prentiss, 26, pitcher for the 1901 Boston Americans and 1902 Baltimore Orioles.

• November 5 - Daisy Davis, 43, pitcher who posted a 16-21 record in 40 games for the 1884 St. Louis Browns and the 1885 Boston Beaneaters.

• November 18 - Watch Burnham, 42, National League umpire between 1883 and 1885, who called balls and strikes for a no-hitter hurled by Charles Radbourn of the Providence Grays in 1883, and later managed the 1887 Indianapolis Hoosiers.

• December 1 - Fred Dunlap, 43, second baseman who played from 1880 to 1891 for six different teams and managed three of them, who led the National League in doubles in 1880 and the Union Association in batting average, home runs, hits and runs scored during the 1884 season, while leading the St. Louis Maroons to the championship title.

• December 4 - Mike Mansell, 44, left fielder who hit .239 in 371 games for six teams from 1879 to 1884, who led the American Association in doubles and triples during the 1884 season.

• December 11 - Bill Hawke, 32, pitcher who posted a 32-31 record with the St. Louis Browns and Baltimore Orioles National Leagues teams from 1892 to 1894, including a no-hitter against the Washington Senators in 1893.

• December 16 - Frank Buttery, 51, utility who hit a .215 average in 18 games and posted a 3-2 record as a pitcher for the 1872 Middletown Mansfields of the National Association.

Moe Berg
Catcher
Born: (1902-03-02)March 2, 1902 New York City, New York
Died: May 29, 1972(1972-05-29) (aged 70) Belleville, New Jersey
Batted: Right	Threw: Right
MLB debut
June 27, 1923 for the Brooklyn Robins
Last MLB appearance
September 1, 1939 for the Boston Red Sox
Career statistics
Batting average	.243
Hits	441
RBI	206
Teams
Brooklyn Robins (1923) Chicago White Sox (1926–1930) Cleveland Indians (1931) Washington Senators (1932–1934) Cleveland Indians (1934) Boston Red Sox (1935–1939)
Career highlights and awards
Member of 1933 American League champion Washington Senators Member of 1934 All-Star team that toured Japan

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 Office of Strategic Services 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"^[1] than for anything he accomplished in the game. Casey Stengel once described Berg as "the strangest man ever to play baseball".^[2]

A graduate of Princeton University and Columbia Law School, Berg spoke several languages and regularly read 10 newspapers a day. His reputation was fueled by his successful appearances as a contestant on the radio quiz show Information, Please! in which he answered questions about the derivation of words and names from Greek and Latin, historical events in Europe and the Far East, and ongoing international conferences.^[3]

As a spy working for the government of the United States, Berg traveled to Yugoslavia to gather intelligence on resistance groups the U.S. government was considering supporting. He was then sent on a mission to Italy, where he interviewed various physicists concerning the German nuclear program. After the war, Berg was occasionally employed by the OSS's successor, the Central Intelligence Agency, but, by the mid-1950s, was unemployed. He spent the last two decades of his life without work, living with various siblings.

Early life[link]

Moe Berg was the third and last child of Bernard Berg, a pharmacist, and Rose Tashker, a homemaker, both Jewish, who lived in the Harlem section of New York City, New York, a few blocks from the Polo Grounds. When Berg was three and a half, he begged his mother to let him start school. In 1906, Bernard Berg bought a pharmacy in West Newark. In 1910 the Berg family moved again, to the Roseville section of Newark. Roseville offered Bernard Berg everything he wanted in a neighborhood—good schools, middle-class residents, and very few Jews.^[4]

Berg began playing baseball at the age of seven for the Roseville Methodist Episcopal Church baseball team under the less ethnic pseudonym Runt Wolfe. In 1918, at the age of 16, Berg graduated from Barringer High School. During his senior season, the Newark Star-Eagle selected a nine-man "dream team" for 1918 from the city's best prep and public high school baseball players, and Berg was named the team's third baseman. Barringer was the first in a series of institutions Berg joined in his life where his religion made him unusual. Most of the other students were East Side Italian Catholics or Protestants from Forest Hill, but there were not many Jews, just as Bernard wanted it.^[5]

After graduating from Barringer, Berg enrolled in New York University. He spent two semesters there and played baseball and basketball. In 1919 he transferred to Princeton University, and never again mentioned that he attended NYU for a year, presenting himself exclusively as a Princeton man.^[6] Berg received a B.A., magna cum laude in modern languages. He had studied seven languages: Latin, Greek, French, Spanish, Italian, German and Sanskrit. His Jewish heritage and modest finances combined to keep him on the fringes of Princeton society, where he never quite fit in.^[7]

During his freshman year, Berg played first base on an undefeated team. Beginning in his sophomore year, he was the starting shortstop. He was not a great hitter and was a slow baserunner, but he had a strong, accurate throwing arm and sound baseball instincts. In his senior season, he was captain of the team and had a .337 batting average, batting .611 against Princeton's arch-rivals, Harvard and Yale. Berg and Crossan Cooper, Princeton's second baseman, communicated plays in Latin when there was a man on second base.^[8]

On June 26, 1923, Yale defeated Princeton 5–1 at Yankee Stadium to win the Big Three title. Berg had an outstanding day, getting two hits in four at bats (2–4) with a single and a double, and making several marvelous plays at shortstop. Both the New York Giants and the Brooklyn Robins desired "Jewish blood" on their teams, to appeal to the large Jewish community in New York, and expressed interest in Berg. The Giants were especially interested, but they already had two future Hall of Famers at shortstop, Dave "Beauty" Bancroft and Travis Jackson. The Robins were a mediocre team, where Berg would have a better chance to play. On June 27, 1923, Berg signed his first big league contract for $5,000 ($68,000 today) with the Robins.^[9]

Major league career[link]

Early career (1923–1925)[link]

Berg's first game with the Robins came the very next day against the Philadelphia Phillies at the Baker Bowl. Berg came in at the start of the seventh inning, replacing Dutch Ruether, when the Robins were winning 13–4. Berg handled five chances without an error and caught a line drive to start a game-ending double play. He made a hit in his only at bat, getting a single up the middle against Clarence Mitchell, and scoring a run.^[10] For the season, Berg batted .187 and made 21 errors in 47 games, his only National League experience.^[11]

After the season ended, Berg took his first trip abroad, sailing from New York to Paris. He settled in the Latin Quarter in an apartment that overlooked the Sorbonne, where he enrolled in 32 different classes.^[12] In Paris he developed a habit he kept for the rest of his life: reading several newspapers daily.^[13] Until Berg finished reading a paper, he considered it "alive" and refused to let anyone else touch it. When he was finished with it, he would consider the paper "dead" and anybody could read it.^[2] In January 1924, instead of heading back to New York and getting himself into shape for the upcoming baseball season, Berg toured Italy and Switzerland.^[13]

During spring training at the Robins facility in Clearwater, Florida, manager Wilbert Robinson could see that Berg's hitting had not improved, and optioned him to the Minneapolis Millers of the American Association. Berg did not take the demotion well and threatened to quit baseball, but by mid-April he reported to the Millers. Berg did very well once he became the Millers' regular third baseman, hitting close to .330, but in July his average plummeted and he was back on the bench. On August 19, 1924 Berg was loaned to the Toledo Mud Hens, a poor team ravaged by injuries. Berg was immediately inserted into the lineup at shortstop when Rabbit Helgeth refused to pay a $10 ($140 today) fine for poor play and was suspended. Major league scout Mike Gonzalez sent a telegram to the Dodgers evaluating Berg with the curt, but now famous, line, "Good field, no hit." Berg finished the season with a .264 average.^[14]

By April 1925, he was starting to show promise as a hitter with the Reading Keystones of the International League. Because of his .311 batting average and 124 runs batted in, the Chicago White Sox exercised their option they had with Reading, paying $6,000 ($80,000 today) for him, and moved Berg up to the big leagues the following year.^[15]

Career as a catcher (1926–1934)[link]

The 1926 season began with Berg informing the White Sox that he would skip spring training and the first two months of the season to complete his first year of law school at Columbia University, and Berg did not join the White Sox until May 28. Bill Hunnefield was signed by the White Sox to take Berg's place at shortstop, and was having a very good year, batting over .300. Berg played in only 41 games, batting .221.^[16]

Berg returned to Columbia after the season to continue working on his law degree. Despite White Sox owner Charles Comiskey offering him more money to come to spring training, Berg declined, and informed the White Sox that he would be reporting late for the 1927 season. Noel Dowling, a professor to whom Berg explained his situation, told Berg to take extra classes in the fall, and said that he would arrange with the dean a leave of absence from law school the following year, 1928.^[17]

Because he reported late, Berg spent the first three months of the season on the bench. In August, a series of injuries to catchers Ray Schalk, Harry McCurdy and Buck Crouse left the White Sox in need of somebody to play the position. Schalk, the White Sox player/manager, selected Berg, who did a fine job filling in. Schalk arranged for former Philadelphia Phillies catcher Frank Bruggy to meet the team at their next game, against the New York Yankees. Bruggy was so fat that pitcher Ted Lyons refused to pitch to him. When Schalk asked him who he wanted to catch, Lyons selected Berg.^[18]

In Berg's debut as a starting catcher, he had to worry not only about catching Lyons's knuckleball, but also about facing the Yankees' Murderers' Row lineup, which included Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and Earle Combs. Lyons beat the Yankees 6–3, holding Ruth hitless. Berg made the defensive play of the game when he caught a poor throw from the outfield, spun and tagged out Joe Dugan at the plate. Berg caught eight more times during the final month and a half of the season.^[19]

To prepare for the 1928 season, Berg traveled to a lumber camp in New York's Adirondack Mountains three weeks prior to reporting to the White Sox spring training facility in Shreveport, Louisiana. The hard labor did wonders for him, as he reported to spring training on March 2, 1928 in excellent shape. By the end of the season, Berg had established himself as the starting catcher.^[20]

At law school, Berg failed Evidence and did not graduate with the class of 1929, but he did pass the New York State bar exam. Berg repeated Evidence the following year, and on February 26, 1930 he received his LL.B.^[21] On April 6, during an exhibition game against the Little Rock Travelers, Berg's spikes caught in the soil as he tried to change directions, and he tore a knee ligament.^[22]

Berg was back in the starting lineup on May 23, 1930, but his knee would not allow him to play every day. He ended up getting into only 20 games the whole season and finished with a .115 batting average. During the winter, he took a job with the respected Wall Street law firm Satterlee and Canfield (now Satterlee, Stephens, Burke & Burke). The Cleveland Indians picked up Berg on April 2, 1931 when Chicago put him on waivers, but he played in only 10 games, and had 13 at bats and only 1 hit for the entire season.^[23]

The Indians gave Berg his unconditional release in January 1932, but with catchers hard to come by, Clark Griffith, owner of the Washington Senators, invited him to spring training in Biloxi, Mississippi. Berg made the team, playing in 75 games while committing no errors. When starting catcher Roy Spencer went down with an injury, Berg stepped in, throwing out 35 base runners while batting .236.^[25]

First trip to Japan[link]

Retired ballplayer Herb Hunter arranged for three players, Berg, Lefty O'Doul and Ted Lyons, to go to Japan to teach baseball seminars at Japanese universities during the winter of 1932. On October 22, 1932, the group of three players began their circuit of Meiji, Waseda, Rikkyo, Todai (Tokyo Imperial), Hosei, and Keio universities, the members of the Tokyo Big Six University League. When the other Americans returned to the United States after their coaching assignments were over, Berg stayed behind to explore Japan. He went on to tour Manchuria, Shanghai, Peking, Indochina, Siam, India, Egypt and Berlin.^[26]

Despite his desire to go back to Japan, Berg reported to the Senators training camp on February 26, 1933 in Biloxi. He played in just 40 games during the season, and batted only .185. The Senators won the pennant, but lost to the Giants in the World Series. Cliff Bolton, the Senators' starting catcher in 1933, demanded more money in 1934. When the Senators refused to pay him more, he sat out and Berg got the starting job. On April 22, Berg made an error, his first fielding mistake since 1932—an American League record of 117 consecutive errorless games. On July 25, the Senators gave Berg his unconditional release. He soon returned to the big leagues, however, after Cleveland Indians catcher Glenn Myatt broke his ankle on August 1. Indians manager Walter Johnson, who had managed Berg in 1932, offered Berg the reserve catching job. Berg played sporadically until Frankie Pytlak, Cleveland's starting catcher, injured himself, and Berg became the starting catcher.^[27]

Second trip to Japan[link]

Herb Hunter arranged for a group of All-Stars, including Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Earl Averill, Charlie Gehringer, Jimmie Foxx and Lefty Gomez, to tour Japan playing exhibitions against a Japanese all-star team. Despite the fact that Berg was a mediocre, third-string catcher, he was invited at the last minute to make the trip. Among the items Berg took with him to Japan were a 16-mm Bell and Howell movie camera and a letter from MovietoneNews, a New York City newsreel production company with which Berg had contracted to film the sights of his trip. When the team arrived in Japan, he gave a welcome speech in Japanese and also addressed the legislature.^[28]

On November 29, 1934, while the rest of the team was playing in Omiya, Berg went to Saint Luke's Hospital in Tsukiji, ostensibly to visit the daughter of American ambassador Joseph Grew. Instead, Berg sneaked onto the roof of the hospital, one of the tallest buildings in Tokyo, and filmed the city and harbor with his movie camera. He never did see the ambassador's daughter. Back at home, the Indians gave him his unconditional release. Berg continued on to the Philippines, Korea and Moscow.^[29]

Late career and coaching (1935–1941)[link]

After his return to America, Berg was picked up by the Boston Red Sox. In his five seasons with the Red Sox, Berg averaged fewer than 30 games a season.^[30]

On February 21, 1939, Berg made his first of three appearances on the radio quiz show, Information, Please! After missing the first question, Berg put on a dazzling performance.^[31] Of his appearance, baseball commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis told him, "Berg, in just thirty minutes you did more for baseball than I've done the entire time I've been commissioner".^[32] On his third appearance, Clifton Fadiman, the moderator, started asking Berg too many personal questions. Berg did not answer any more questions and never appeared on the show again.^[32] Regular show guest and sportswriter John Kieran later said that "Moe was the most scholarly professional athlete (I) ever knew."^[33]

After his playing career ended, Berg was a Red Sox coach in 1940 and 1941.

Post-baseball career[link]

Spying for the U.S. Government[link]

With the attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese on December 7, 1941, the United States was thrust into World War II. To do his part for the war effort, Berg accepted a position with Nelson Rockefeller's Office of Inter-American Affairs on January 5, 1942. Nine days later, his father, Bernard, died.^[34] During the summer of 1942, Berg screened the footage he shot of Tokyo Bay for intelligence officers of the United States military. The film may have helped Lieutenant Colonel Jimmy Doolittle plan his famous Doolittle Raid.^[35]

From August 1942 until February 1943, Berg was on assignment in the Caribbean and South America. His job was to monitor the health and physical fitness of the American troops stationed there. Berg, along with several other OIAA agents, left in June 1943 because they thought South America posed little threat to the United States, and they wanted to be someplace where their talents would be put to better use.^[36]

On August 2, 1943, Berg accepted a position with the Office of Strategic Services for a salary of $3,800 ($51,000 today) a year. He was a Paramilitary Operations Officer in the part of the OSS that is now called the Special Activities Division. In September, he was assigned to the Secret Intelligence branch of the OSS and given a place at the OSS Balkans desk. In this role, he parachuted into Yugoslavia to evaluate the various resistance groups operating against the Nazis to determine which was the strongest. He talked to both Draza Mihajlovic and Tito and reviewed their forces, deciding that Tito had the stronger and better supported group. His evaluations were used to help determine the amount of support and aid to give each group.^[37] In late 1943, Berg was assigned to Project Larson, an OSS operation set up by OSS Chief of Special Projects John Shaheen. The stated purpose of the project was to kidnap Italian rocket and missile specialists out of Italy and bring them to the U.S. However, there was another project hidden within Larson, called Project AZUSA, with the goal of interviewing Italian physicists to see what they knew about Werner Heisenberg and Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker. It was similar in scope and mission to the Alsos project.^[38]

Moe turned down the Medal of Freedom during his lifetime; it was re-awarded after his death, with his sister accepting on his behalf.

From May 1944 to mid-December, Berg hopped around Europe interviewing physicists and trying to convince several to leave Europe and work in America. At the beginning of December, news about Heisenberg giving a lecture in Zurich, Switzerland reached the OSS, and Berg was assigned the task of attending the lecture and determining "if anything Heisenberg said convinced him the Germans were close to a bomb." If Berg came to the conclusion that the Germans were close, he had orders to shoot Heisenberg; Berg determined that the Germans were not close. During his time in Switzerland, Berg became close friends with the physicist Paul Scherrer. Berg returned to the United States on April 25, 1945, and resigned from the Strategic Services Unit, the successor to the OSS, in August. He was awarded the Medal of Freedom on October 10, but he rejected the award on December 2. His sister later accepted it on his behalf after his death.^[39]

After World War II[link]

In 1946, former Chicago White Sox teammate Ted Lyons was the new manager of the White Sox, and offered Berg a coaching position. Berg declined. Boston Red Sox owner Thomas Yawkey, who was much closer to Berg when he played for Red Sox, matched Lyons' offer, but Berg still turned them down. Berg did not apply for a teaching position, or join a law firm.

In 1951, Berg begged the CIA to send him to Israel. "A Jew must do this," he wrote in his notebook. The CIA rejected Berg's request. Still, in 1952 Berg was hired by the CIA to use his old contacts from World War II to gather information about the Soviet atomic science. For the $10,000 plus expenses that Berg received, the CIA received nothing in return. The CIA officer who spoke with Berg when he returned from Europe said that he was "flaky".^[40] Berg continued to serve his assignment for the CIA until 1954, when his contract expired. The CIA chose not to renew it. Berg tried again to serve the CIA and the CIA again declined.

For the next 20 years, Berg had no real job, living off friends and relatives who put up with him because of his charisma. When they would ask what he did for a living, he would reply by putting his finger to his lips, giving them the impression that he was still a spy.^[41] A life-long bachelor, he lived with his brother Samuel for 17 years. According to Samuel, he became moody and snappish after the war and did not seem to care for much in life besides his books. His brother finally grew fed up with the arrangement and asked Moe to leave and even had eviction papers drawn up.^[2] After being evicted from his brother's home, Berg moved in with his sister Ethel in Belleville, New Jersey, where he remained for the rest of his life.^[42]

He received a handful of votes in Baseball Hall of Fame voting (four in 1958, and five in 1960). When he was criticized for "wasting" his intellectual talent on the sport he loved, Berg replied, "I'd rather be a ballplayer than a justice on the U.S. Supreme Court".^[43]

Berg received many requests to write his memoirs, but turned them down; he almost wrote them in 1960, but he quit after the co-writer assigned to him confused him with Moe Howard of the Three Stooges.^[2]

Death[link]

Moe Berg died on May 29, 1972, at age 70, from injuries sustained in a fall at home. A nurse at the Newark, New Jersey hospital where he died recalled his final words as, "How did the Mets do today?" ^[44] (They won.)^[45] His remains were cremated and spread over Mount Scopus in Israel.

Legacy[link]

Berg was inducted into the National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in 1996,^[46] and the Baseball Reliquary's Shrine of the Eternals in 2000.^[47] His is the only baseball card on display at the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency.^[48]

In 1976, reporters Louis Kaufman of the Boston Globe and Tom Sewell of the Boston Herald joined writer Barbara Fitzgerald to write Moe Berg: Athlete, Scholar, Spy. In 1994 Nicholas Dawidoff wrote a biography, The Catcher Was a Spy: The Mysterious Life of Moe Berg.

Chuck Brodsky, an American singer-songwriter, released a song entitled "Moe Berg: The Song" on his 1998 album Radio.

See also[link]

Baseball portal

• Jews and Baseball: An American Love Story, 2010 documentary
• List of select Jewish baseball players
• Operation Alsos

References[link]

Notes

Bibliography

• Acocella, Nick. "Moe Berg:Catcher and spy". ESPN Classic. http://espn.go.com/classic/biography/s/Berg_Moe.html. Retrieved January 8, 2010. 
• Dawidoff, Nicholas (1994). The Catcher was a Spy: The Mysterious Life of Moe Berg. New York: Vintage Books. ISBN 0-679-76289-2. 

External links[link]

Listen to this article (info/dl)

This audio file was created from a revision of the "Moe Berg" article dated 2008-05-31, and does not reflect subsequent edits to the article. (Audio help)

More spoken articles

• The Moe Berg Papers at Princeton University Library
• Career statistics and player information from Baseball-Reference, or Fangraphs, or The Baseball Cube
• SABR biography
• Moe Berg at Find a Grave
• BR Bullpen profile
• BaseballLibrary profile and career highlights
• Annotated bibliography for Berg from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues
• Jewish Sports Hall of Fame bio
• "Secrets, Lies, and Atomic Spies"
• Jewish-American Hall of Fame
• Moe Berg Biography at J-Grit: The Internet Index of Tough Jews
• 1923 passport photo; Moe Berg
• Moe Berg Batted .243 for the White Sox and 1.000 for America

Billy Meredith

Personal information
Full name	William Henry Meredith
Date of birth	(1874-07-30)30 July 1874
Place of birth	Black Park, Chirk, Wales
Date of death	19 April 1958(1958-04-19) (aged 83)
Place of death	Manchester, England
Height	5 ft 9 in (1.75 m)
Playing position	Outside forward
Youth career
	Black Park
Senior career*
Years	Team	Apps†	(Gls)†
1890–1892	Chirk
1892–1894	Northwich Victoria	11	(5)
1894–1906	Manchester City	339	(129)
1906–1921	Manchester United	303	(35)
1921–1924	Manchester City	28	(0)
National team
1895–1920	Wales[1]	48	(11)
* Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only. † Appearances (Goals).

William Henry "Billy" Meredith (30 July 1874 – 19 April 1958) was a Welsh footballer. He was considered one of the early superstars of football due to his performances, notably for Manchester City and Manchester United.^[2] He won each domestic trophy in the English football league and also gained 48 caps for Wales, for whom he scored 11 goals. 22 of these international appearances were gained while playing for Manchester City, while 26 were gained while playing for Manchester United. His favoured position was outside right.

Early life[link]

Meredith was born in 1874 in Black Park, Chirk, a small mining town in North Wales, just south of Wrexham. He started work at Black Park Colliery as a pit pony driver at the age of 12. An interest in football was kindled by his elder brothers. Elias, the eldest, was a train driver for the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway. His work allowed him to take Meredith to watch professional teams such as Everton.^[3] Football was a keen pastime for the miners, and the standard of amateur teams from towns and villages in north east Wales was high as a result. Chirk won the Welsh Cup five times between 1887 and 1894, with miners making up a large proportion of the team.^[3] All the Meredith brothers played football, but Sam, two years older than Meredith, was the first to make an impression. He left Chirk to attempt a professional career, and went on to play for Stoke as a full-back.^[4]

Meredith made his debut for the Chirk first team in September 1892. The club played in The Combination, a league which contained a mixture of town clubs and reserve teams of clubs from big cities. At the end of his first season Meredith played in the 1893 Welsh Cup final, which Chirk lost 2–1 to Wrexham. 1893 was a time of industrial unrest for the miners, who chose to strike in response to a pay cut. Chirk withdrew from the Combination and entered only the Welsh league. In an attempt to make ends meet, Meredith not only played for Chirk, but accepted an offer to play for Football League club Northwich Victoria as well, who gave him a small fee on top of his expenses.^[5] Northwich were a struggling side, who withdrew from the Football League at the end of the 1893–94 season after finishing bottom of the Second Division. The club won just three League matches; Meredith featured in each win.^[5] Back at Chirk, Meredith gained his first honour as part of the team which beat Westminster Rovers to win the 1894 Welsh Cup.^[6]

Club career[link]

First spell at Manchester City[link]

Meredith's performances for Northwich gained the attention of several League clubs. Bolton Wanderers' Di Jones, a former Chirk player, spoke with Meredith about a possible move, but Bolton secretary J.J. Bentley regarded Meredith as too inexperienced, and his frame too slight.^[7] Lawrence Furniss, an official at Ardwick, had first noticed Meredith while refereeing a Northwich match.^[4] Meredith also played in both meetings between the clubs that season.^[8] Later in 1894, Ardwick, by then known as Manchester City, vigorously pursued Meredith's signature. Two club officials travelled to Wales to meet the player. One was secretary-manager Joshua Parlby, the other either Furniss or chairman John Chapman.^[4][8] The pair were met with suspicion. Anecdotes by contemporary figures suggest they were initially chased away by locals, and were only allowed to speak to Meredith after they bought drinks for his mining colleagues.^[4] Meredith did not wish to abandon life in Chirk. His mother was particularly against the idea: "It is all very well for you gentlemen to leave your big cities and come to our villages to steal our boys away... Our boys are happy and healthy, satisfied with their work and innocent amusements... if Billy takes my advce he will stick to his work and play football for his own amusement when work is finished."^[4] Meredith did eventually sign for Manchester City, but as an amateur. He continued work at the pit for at least a year, commuting back and forth for matches.

Meredith made his Manchester City debut against Newcastle United in November 1894, in a 5–4 defeat for City.^[9] The following week Meredith played his first home match for the club, and scored two goals against Newton Heath — who later became Manchester United — in the first Manchester derby to take place in the league. Newton Heath won the match 5–2. In January 1895 Meredith turned professional.^[9]

In his first full season at Manchester City, Meredith finished as top scorer,^[10] despite playing on the wing. He repeated the feat the following year, but was outscored by Billie Gillespie in 1897–98. The final match of that season saw Meredith score his first hat-trick for the club in an emphatic 9–0 win against Burton Swifts.^[11] He was loved by the City fans and would draw huge crowds for any public event he attended.

Meredith was captain when Manchester City won the FA Cup in 1904, the club's first major honour. The club missed out on a league and cup double that season, as they finished runners up in the league.

Corruption scandal and ban[link]

Meredith was found to be involved in a bribery scandal at the conclusion of the 1904–05 season.^[12] He was accused of bribing an opposition player to lose.^[13]

Meredith in Manchester United colours

It was alleged that he bribed Aston Villa's Alex Leake £10 to lose a match and in 1904 he was hit with an 18 month ban from playing for City.^[14]