Event
The Spy Behind Home Plate
Ends Thursday
Award-winning filmmaker Aviva Kempner (The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg, Rosenwald) tells the real story of Moe Berg, major league baseball player turned spy.
Berg caught and fielded in the major leagues during baseball’s Golden Age in the 1920s and 1930s. But very few people know that Berg also worked for the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), spying in Europe and playing a prominent role in America’s efforts to undermine the German atomic bomb program during WWII.
The Spy Behind Home Plate reveals the life of this unknown Jewish hero through rare historical footage and photographs as well as revealing interviews with an All-Star roster of celebrities and other individuals from the worlds of sports, spycraft, and history.
Berg may have had only a .243 batting average during his 15-year major league career, but it was the stats he collected for the OSS that made him a most valuable player to his country during World War II.
Click here to read Don Gonyea’s interview with director Aviva Kempner from NPR’s All Things Considered, Sunday, June 2, 2019.
"offers a solid experience and a nice run around the many bases of Moe Berg’s life...a worthwhile salute to a great baseball star, a true American hero...and a spy."
"I found it mesmerizing and can't think of another public figure whose biography contains so many surprises and revelations."
"There’s much to absorb throughout 'The Spy Behind Home Plate' … Kempner’s passion for her remarkable subject is always evident. If she wants you to know a lot about Moe Berg, that’s because there’s a lot worth knowing."
