What am I missing on Moe Berg?

[ullmandds]

After I read the catcher was a spy...I Wanted a Moe Berg card!!!!!!!

To say Berg's cards sell higher than gehrig's just is not true...this may only be the occasional case in a set where gehrigs cards go very very cheap...definitely not the main issues like goudey.

[Wildfireschulte]

A teammate Once said of Berg, "he can speak seven languages, but can't hit in any of them".

[Orioles1954]

Demand is based on story and lore. I actually find Berg's story more compelling that the Black Sox Scandal.

[HOF Auto Rookies]

Originally Posted by ullmandds

After I read the catcher was a spy...I Wanted a Moe Berg card!!!!!!!.

This, +1.

I first heard about Moe 7 years ago or so (when I heavily got into collecting my hof cards etc.) and heard he was a spy, and quite an interesting man (too bad he's not around today, he surely would have been the "World's Most Interesting Man" for Dos Equis). I immediately went home to search for any signed cards/cards/and plain auto's of him.

[jerseygary]

Moe is a big part of Rob Fitts' book "Banzai Babe Ruth" which came out a few years ago. It focuses on the 1934 tour of Japan (where Berg took the movies of the Tokyo skyline later used by the USAAF in identifying targets). Besides the Berg parts, Fitts' book is a great glimpse of 1934 baseball, a must have if you collect Goudey and Diamond Stars and love the story behind the players - Lefty Gomes, Ruth, Gehrig, Mack, Foxx - they're all in there and the author brings them all to life. There's a great look into the Ruth-Gehrig relationship and I really enjoyed how The Babe was portrayed in the book. Plus there's an additional sub-plot of a military coup and how the US baseball tour played a part in it. Reads like fiction, but it's all true - but anyway, its a contemporary book about Berg besides the usual "Catcher was a Spy" that's often read.

[FrankWakefield]

Berg's brother and sister each had different perspectives on their baseball playing brother, and each supported separate books about him. The sister's had limited printing, it took me a while to get a copy. Berg was a very interesting fellow. It isn't just baseball and spy... it's how he could walk in and out of places, drop in on people, disappear for periods of time. One tiny insight, he liked reading all of a newspaper; unread, he considered it "alive", and once he had read it, it was "dead". He didn't like folks messing with his newspapers.

[dabigyankeeman]

Originally Posted by jerseygary

Moe is a big part of Rob Fitts' book "Banzai Babe Ruth" which came out a few years ago. It focuses on the 1934 tour of Japan (where Berg took the movies of the Tokyo skyline later used by the USAAF in identifying targets). Besides the Berg parts, Fitts' book is a great glimpse of 1934 baseball, a must have if you collect Goudey and Diamond Stars and love the story behind the players - Lefty Gomes, Ruth, Gehrig, Mack, Foxx - they're all in there and the author brings them all to life. There's a great look into the Ruth-Gehrig relationship and I really enjoyed how The Babe was portrayed in the book. Plus there's an additional sub-plot of a military coup and how the US baseball tour played a part in it. Reads like fiction, but it's all true - but anyway, its a contemporary book about Berg besides the usual "Catcher was a Spy" that's often read.

I was unaware of this book, after reading your post I got on Amazon and ordered it. Thanks!!!

[jerseygary]

Hope you like it as much as I did!

[GehrigFan]

If I remember right, Berg was also basically tossed aside by the Secret Service/CIA after his spy work in Japan. He was rehired later in a lesser capacity. But he was essentially homeless for awhile and would wander around, living with friends and relatives. He was one of the smartest and most educated (and most fluent) men in America, and the government just used him and tossed him away.

One of the pieces I really loved in our last Heritage auction was Berg's actual Europe Eurail train pass from one of his spy trips.

[pbspelly]

Here's a shot of my grandfather Billy Sullivan with Moe Berg. I always thought it was an interesting picture because I would think it has to be the only photo of two major league catchers who both had law degrees. Perhaps even the only photo of two major league players who both had law degrees at the time they were playing.