{"id":1284,"date":"2016-11-09T17:24:03","date_gmt":"2016-11-09T17:24:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cjhblog.cjh.org\/index.php\/2016\/11\/09\/a-night-at-the-ballpark\/"},"modified":"2016-11-09T17:24:03","modified_gmt":"2016-11-09T17:24:03","slug":"a-night-at-the-ballpark","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.cjh.org\/index.php\/2016\/11\/09\/a-night-at-the-ballpark\/","title":{"rendered":"A Night at the Ballpark"},"content":{"rendered":"

By James Benjamin Nadel, Communications Outreach Associate <\/p>\n

The Chicago Cubs took center stage in the world
\nof baseball, winning their first World Series Championship in 108 years. But
\nthe Cubs are not the only baseball team that has recently achieved a first.
\nLate last month, on a Sunday night at MCU Park in Brooklyn, where the
\nluminescent rides of Coney Island tower over the outfield fence, the Israeli
\nnational baseball team defeated Great Britain to advance to its first World
\nBaseball Classic<\/a> tournament. Held scoreless for the first half of the game, the
\nIsraeli team broke through in the bottom of the 5th<\/sup> with a pair of
\ntwo-run homers. Meanwhile, the team\u2019s starting pitcher Jason Marquis<\/a> (last
\nseen playing professionally for the Cincinnati Reds) threw four scoreless
\ninnings to open the game, on route to a 9-1 victory. Many fans came out to the
\nballpark with Israeli flags to show their support for the team. <\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n
\n

\nPhoto taken by James Nadel<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This coming March, the Israeli team will compete
\nwith the best national teams from around the world. \u00a0The international focus of the World Baseball
\nClassic tournament calls to mind a unique archival collection held by the
\nAmerican Jewish Historical Society (AJHS). The papers of Morris (Moe) Berg<\/a>
\n(Call number P-934) chronicle the life of this former major leaguer and son of Russian-Jewish
\nimmigrants. Berg, born in New York City in 1905, played intermittently in the
\nStates during the 1930s; first for the Brooklyn Dodgers and then later for the
\nChicago White Sox, Cleveland Indians and Washington Senators. Widely regarded
\nas \u201cthe most educated man in baseball,\u201d (at least according to this baseball
\ncard) Berg studied linguistics at Princeton, graduated from the Sorbonne and
\nworked as a licensed lawyer in the off-season. <\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n
\n

https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:MoeBergGoudeycard.jpg<\/a><\/p>\n

[Public Domain] <\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

During the 1930s, Berg traveled around the world to
\ncontinue his studies. Along with a few fellow ballplayers, he taught baseball
\nat several universities in Japan. There, in 1934, he joined up with Connie
\nMack\u2019s barnstorming all-star team, which included such greats as Lou Gering and
\nBabe Ruth, and which is often credited with cementing the popularity of
\nbaseball in Japan.<\/a>
\nOver the course of these years, Berg became fluent in Japanese. <\/p>\n

Berg\u2019s international experience transcended
\nbeyond baseball. In 1942, he acted as a goodwill ambassador to countries in Central
\nand South America. In that same year, in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor, Berg
\ndelivered a message to the people of Japan (in Japanese), condemning the attack
\nand the actions of the Japanese government. In 1943, the Office of Strategic
\nServices (OSS) recruited Berg as an agent due to his wide range of linguistic
\nskills. In the OSS, Berg was tasked with ascertaining information about the Central
\nPowers\u2019 atomic bomb program, specifically the capabilities and projects of
\nItalian scientists. Towards the end of the war, he was involved in detaining
\nGerman nuclear scientists, and he remained with the OSS until his retirement in
\n1952. <\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n
\n

Photo taken by James Nadel<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Want to read more about
\nthe life of Moe Berg? Read about him in this book<\/a> held by the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research.
<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By James Benjamin Nadel, Communications Outreach Associate The Chicago Cubs took center stage in the world of baseball, winning their first World Series Championship in 108 years. But the Cubs are not the only baseball team that has recently achieved a first. Late last month, on a Sunday night at MCU Park in Brooklyn, where the luminescent rides of Coney Island tower over the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[44,75,185,182,187,184,186,183,31],"class_list":["post-1284","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog-post","tag-ajhs-collections","tag-american-jewish-historical-society","tag-american-jewish-historical-society-collections","tag-baseball","tag-coney-island","tag-james-nadel","tag-moe-berg","tag-world-baseball-classic","tag-yivo-institute-for-jewish-research-collections"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cjh.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cjh.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cjh.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cjh.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cjh.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1284"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cjh.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1284\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cjh.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cjh.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cjh.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}