Moe Berg

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" than for anything he accomplished in the game. Casey Stengel once described Berg as "the strangest man ever to play baseball".

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.

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.

Moe Berg (musician)

Murray Kevin "Moe" Berg (born March 22, 1959 in Edmonton, Alberta) is a Canadian singer-songwriter and record producer, best known as the lead singer for the Toronto rock group The Pursuit of Happiness.

Biography

Before forming The Pursuit of Happiness, Berg was in the Edmonton bands Troc '59, The News, Modern Minds and Facecrime.

After working with The Pursuit of Happiness for ten years, Berg released his first solo album, Summer's Over, in 1997. He has also produced a number of records for other artists. He currently plays rhythm in the 1980s cover band "Monteforte".

Berg has been published as a writer, releasing his first book, a short story collection called The Green Room, in 2000 (Gutter Press, ISBN 1-896356-32-X). He has also written book reviews for Amazon.ca, the Edmonton Journal, The Globe and Mail, among articles for other publications.

He currently works mainly as a record producer for young bands such as The Cliks.

In 2009, Berg began co-hosting a television show, Master Tracks, on Aux. The show is a documentary look at the recording process of emerging bands attempting to record a song in one day in a professional recording studio. The show's first season is currently airing on Aux and is in post production for its second season.