The Spy Behind Home Plate

Award-winning filmmaker Aviva Kempner tells the real story of Moe Berg, major league baseball player turned spy.

In this first ever feature-length documentary about the enigmatic Berg, Kempner again focuses her camera on a little-known Jewish hero. From the streets of Newark to five major league teams during baseball’s Golden Age to his secret life spying for the OSS during WWII…Berg’s improbable story is told with rare historical footage and revealing interviews with family and an All-Star roster from the worlds of history, sports and spy craft.

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Moe Berg – Courtesy of Irwin Berg

Aviva Kempner’s The Spy Behind Home Plate is the first feature-length documentary to tell the real story of Morris “Moe” Berg, the enigmatic and brilliant Jewish 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.

GUEST SPEAKER Producer/Director/Writer Aviva Kempner

Sunday, June 20, 7:30

Sunday, June 20, 7:30 pm

Producer/Director/Writer Aviva Kempner, A SPY BEHIND HOME PLATE, will join us for a Q&A at 7:30 pm
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The Spy Behind Home Plate is a documentary that should appeal to anyone with an interest in stories about the Golden Age of baseball, World War II spy missions, and unusual corners of American Jewish history. The subject of the film is Moe Berg, the Jewish ballplayer and polymath who spoke multiple languages and graduated from Princeton magna cum laude (during an era in which Jews were not welcome at that university), played professional ball for 15 years, became a lawyer, a popular star of the radio quiz show Information Please, and a spy for the OSS (the American precursor to the CIA).
Marjorie Baumgarten
Marjorie BaumgartenContributing Writer, Film
“The Spy Behind Home Plate” instead stays focused on Berg’s many provable novelties, as an athlete, as an intellectual, and as an espionage agent. That’s quite enough to make Kempner’s film interesting, and the collegial atmosphere is inviting and warm. The film doesn’t take an extra step towards cinematic showiness, nor does it glamorize or sensationalize Berg’s life. It’s just a nice time talking about World War II and baseball, sharing stories and retelling old jokes. It’s a respectable ode to Berg’s unusual, remarkable life.
William Bibbiani
William BibbianiWriter
You can’t make this stuff up. Actually, you can—you can make anything up. That’s a stupid thing people say. The plain and simple truth is that Moe Berg’s life lends itself to being told—it rolls off the cinematic tongue. Aviva Kempner, director of The Spy Behind Home Plate, has gathered the heads of those who know Berg best: his family, friends, colleagues, historians, and even Brad Ausmus, because, you know, he played baseball, too. Their stories go a long way in teasing apart the 3-D jigsaw puzzle that Berg presented himself as. There’s a particular story that comes from more than one mouth. When asked about anything even slightly related to his involvement with the OSS, Berg would always answer by quietly putting his finger to his lips. Oh, and he was friends with Chico Marx.
Hunter Lanier
Hunter LanierMovie Critic
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