“They Ain’t Learned You to Hit that Curveball…”

The American Baseball player Moe Berg was more than just a great catcher. Berg had received graduate degrees from Princeton University and the Sorbonne in Paris, knew several languages and later served as a spy during WWII. He was known for reading 10 newspapers a day, and his etymological erudition (grasp of languages) led to a quiz show where he would describe various words’ origins.

But of course he was mainly known as a baseball player, making his debut for the Brooklyn Robins in 1923, and whose career spanned 16 years, playing for the Chicago White Sox, the Cleveland Indians, the…