The Spy Behind Home Plate
Moe Berg is an individual whom both sports fans, and World War II buffs, should know. I feel like Berg’s is a name I had heard before, but the story is too wild, and fascinating, to be forgotten as far as how he went from being a Jewish immigrant with his family to a baseball player to a Princeton law student to an ambassador to US baseball next to the likes of Babe Ruth to someone whose work for the American government in WWII was crucial to the war effort. This documentary by Aviva Kempner is compelling history, and an entertaining movie to watch.
Kempner follows a straight line through Berg’s life with his family, when he first started playing baseball (which he had to do with Christian teams), eventually making it to the major leagues, then continuing his education in the law while playing baseball. It is when the film begins to discuss his time on an American national team on tour in Japan prior to WWII when clues of a deeper life beyond the diamond start to come out in the stories of the talking heads we hear from. Berg’s thirst for information is impressive, and he knows several languages. As WWII begins to ramp up after the attack on Pearl Harbor, he joins a lot of other significant public figures of his generation in the war effort. His contributions would make for a great spy movie.
“The Spy Behind Home Plate” does not reinvent the documentary form for its story, and it doesn’t have to with this compelling a story. If someone like Errol Morris had made this film, it probably would have been more elliptical in its approach, but this film just being a straightforward telling of Berg’s life dives us headlong into the unlikely story of a great American who accomplished more in his life, in both sides of his life, than a lot of public figures do. His baseball career was not one of significance in the grand scheme of the game- he was average at best- but it was that public persona that led him to be able to do things for his country that no one really would have expected, and his intellect was why he was so interesting a baseball player, and so good when he turned to working for the Office of Strategic Services during WWII. This is one of the most interesting stories we’ve had told in 2019, and it was one of the most consequential ones of the first half of last century. Stories like Berg’s are important to remember as history turns into memory. I’m grateful to Kempner for sharing this one.
