Moe Berg's story is chronicled in Aviva Kempner's new documentary, 'The Spy Behind Home Plate' In the fall of 1934, a contingent of American baseball players including Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and Jimmie Foxx boarded a luxury cruise liner to Japan for a 12-city barnstorming tour. Five similar tours had taken place in the increasingly baseball-obsessed nation since 1908, but the political climate was different in 1934. Japan had invaded the Chinese region of Manchuria in 1931, and by the mid-1930s, the tension across the Pacific was palpable. To the Japanese, the tour was a chance to see the aging Ruth, who thrilled crowds with 13 home runs as the Americans went 18-0 against the All-Nippon team. To the Americans, the games were more about goodwill. Players posed for pictures, exchanged pleasantries with esteemed members of Japanese society, and accepted rare gifts, such as vases, all while promoting the game and American culture. Perhaps the most important souvenir was taken by the team's soft-hitting journeyman catcher, Moe Berg. The Washington Senators backstop was hardly a star, so it went unnoticed when he opted out of a game in Omiya and instead brought a bouquet of flowers to St. Luke's Hospital, where Ambassador Joseph Clark Grew's daughter, Cecil Burton, had given birth. But Berg had no intention of visiting Burton, whom he had never met. Wearing a kimono and speaking Japanese, Berg made his way into the hospital, up the stairs, and on to the roof of the highest building in Tokyo at the time. He then took out a movie camera and began filming the city skyline, military installations, factories, and Tokyo Harbor – sensitive locations that the Empire of Japan was already working to protect ahead of an inevitable conflict with the West. It's not definitively known if Berg had been given this assignment by someone in military intelligence, and there are conflicting reports about whether or not the U.S. Army Air Forces used the footage to plan the famed Doolittle Raid on Tokyo in 1942. What is now known is that Berg was embarking on a career in espionage that ultimately led him to Europe, where he successfully gathered intelligence on physicist Werner Heisenberg and the Nazis' plans to build an atomic weapon. Berg's story is chronicled in Aviva Kempner's new documentary, 'The Spy Behind Home Plate,' which will premiere in Washington D.C. on Friday. In 1934, Berg (pictured left in a kimono) went to St. Luke's Hospital, the highest building in Tokyo at the time. He then took out a movie camera and began filming the city skyline, military installations, factories, and Tokyo Harbor – sensitive locations that the Empire of Japan was already working to protect ahead of an inevitable conflict with the West. Despite having degrees from Princeton and Columbia Law, Berg became a Major League baseball player who enjoyed a 15-year career as soft-hitting journeyman catcher with excellent defensive skills Like Berg, Kempner had studied law but never pursued a career as an attorney. Instead she's dedicated 40 years to making films about Jewish heroes, such as former Detroit Tigers slugger Hank Greenberg. 'Every morning I walk up and down the steps with three wall hangings: One of Sandy Koufax, Hank Greenberg and Mo Berg,' she told the Daily Mail, referring to three of the most well-known Jewish players in baseball history. But while Koufax, the legendary Dodgers pitcher, and Greenberg are celebrated for what they accomplished on the field, Berg's life is far more complex. Born to Jewish immigrants from the Ukraine in 1902, Berg and his family moved from Harlem to Newark in 1910. His parents pushed him academically, but Berg fell in love with baseball. And, in what may have been his first undercover assignment, he played in a church league under a pseudonym to disguise his religion. Berg's parents disliked baseball so much that his father, a druggist, died without ever having seen his son play in a Major League game. He never married or had children, and although a recent dramatized biopic titled 'The Catcher Was A Spy' suggested Berg was a homosexual, Kempner describes him as a 'ladies man.' As Ruth's 101-year-old daughter Julia said in the documentary before her death in March, Berg made a pass at her aboard the cruise liner to Japan in 1934. 'He kinda came on to me,' said Julia Ruth Stevens, who was 18 at the time. In 1942, Berg (center) accepted an invitation from Rockefeller to serve as a goodwill ambassador on a tour of Latin America, where he was to be seen distributing baseball equipment to children. In reality, Berg was in Latin America to assess the political loyalties of local leaders and report on potential infiltration by the Nazi party. Intensely private, Berg was described by Hall of Fame player and manager Casey Stengal as the 'strangest man ever to play baseball,' and that was before anyone knew he was a spy. (That information became public after his death in 1972 at age 70) Berg had degrees from Princeton and Columbia Law and knew nearly a dozen languages; he had broken into the majors as a shortstop, converted to catcher, and wrote an essay in the Atlantic titled 'Pitchers and Catchers' that is still resonates with today's players. Those who didn't know Berg from his years in with the Senators, Chicago White Sox, or Boston Red Sox may have heard his voice on NBC's radio quiz show, Information Please, in 1938. Berg rattled off historical facts, referenced current events, and thanks to his fluency with languages, he recited etymologies of words derived from Greek and Latin. Ultimately Berg became a regular panelist on the popular show. The publicity wasn't only good for Berg, but for baseball. As current White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf told Kempner: 'Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, who was the commissioner of baseball and one of the great egomaniacs of all time, said [to Berg]: "You did more for baseball in 30 minutes than I did in all my years as commissioner."' 'And for Landis to say that, especially about a Jew I might add, that's quite a compliment,' said retired commissioner Bud Selig of his predecessor, who has been derided as a bigot by historians for perpetuating baseball's color line. By 1938, Berg was finishing his career as a player/coach for the Red Sox. But rather than pursue a future as a manager – a profession populated by savvy former catchers such as himself – he instead enlisted with the Office of Inter-American Affairs under Nelson Rockefeller. As Kempner's film explains, Berg was concerned with the rise of Nazism in Europe, and not simply because he was Jewish. He saw the opportunity as his patriotic duty. In 1942, the U.S. government capitalized on his fluency in Japanese by having Berg plea for peace in a radio message broadcast to the country's citizens. That same year Berg accepted an invitation from Rockefeller to serve as a goodwill ambassador on a tour of Latin America, where he was to be seen distributing baseball equipment to children. In reality, Berg was in Latin America to assess the political loyalties of local leaders and report on potential infiltration by the Nazi party. At the time, not even Berg's family knew what he was doing. When he visited his brother Sam at a base in California that summer, Berg explained that he had been flown in on an Army plane. Confused, Sam Berg asked his brother why the Army would bother a civilian. In response, Moe put his index finger up to his lips and quickly quieted Sam's line of questioning. Things only seemed more bizarre to Sam when Berg invited him out to dinner with Chico Marx of the Marx Brothers. After dining in San Jose, the Berg brothers said their goodbyes, and did not see each other for four years, by which point Moe was returning from his most dangerous mission. (Sam, a doctor, would go on to study nuclear radiation at Nagasaki after the war) In 1943, Berg joined the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the CIA precursor that also included chef Julia Child and film director John Ford among its operatives. The OSS had come to rely on first- and second-generation immigrants to infiltrate foreign enemies, and Berg's command of German and Italian made him a perfect candidate to go to Europe and report Nazis' progress with the atomic bomb. According to Thomas Powers, author of 'Heisenberg's War,' 'No man ever knew more languages and said less in them' than Berg. 'I think what he did, in some ways, is much more dangerous than being in the front line with the whole unit,' Kempner said of Berg. 'Because you're a lone ranger, if you don't meet your operatives, if he gets caught, he's a circumcised Jewish man. They could figure that out right away.' When Berg helped sneak Italy’s famed aeronautical engineer Antonio Ferri into the United States, President Franklin D. Roosevelt reportedly responded, 'I see Berg is still catching pretty well.' Thanks to a list provided to the U.S. government by Italian physicist Enrico Fermi, Berg began targeting Italian scientists who could potentially be enlisted by the Nazis. Berg's mission was to interview them and assess their knowledge of the German bomb program. Eventually Berg's leads brought him to Zurich, where Heisenberg was set to deliver a lecture in 1944. Dressed in ill-fitting, counterfeit German shoes made by American tailors, Berg was armed with a pistol and cyanide capsule, and sent to the conference. At a tremendous risk to himself, he was instructed to shoot Heisenberg on the spot if he determined the renowned physicist was close to delivering the bomb to the Nazis. Making that determination not only required a command of German, but physics as well. 'I can't even spell the word "physics," but he could figure out the formulas and confer with a lot of scientists,' said Kempner, who claims to have seen Berg's notes on the lecture. In his lecture, Heisenberg did not betray any state secrets or even hint that an atomic bomb was nearly complete (although Kempner and several historians have questioned why the OSS thought that was even a possibility). Still not satisfied, Berg approached Heisenberg at a party after the lecture and, after walking him to his hotel at the end of the night, determined that the German atomic bomb program was at least two years behind America's. Like the footage he recorded atop St. Luke's Hospital in Tokyo, the exact effect of Berg's work in Zurich is unclear. But undoubtedly, a solid understanding of Germany's atomic capabilities helped the U.S. determine the best strategy for ending the war. 'We had to be sure that the Germans did not have the bomb,' said Kempner. 'I think his report from Zurich was the icing on the cake to say, "OK, they don't have it. We can breathe a little easier. We're on to something. They aren't."' The remainder of Berg's life was less glamorous. He retired from the service, declined a Medal of Freedom saying it would 'embarrass' him, and according to Kempner, he actually raised money for Jewish refugees. 'Not many people know that,' she said. 'That's a whole other story.' Berg, who had financial troubles for much of his later life, passed away in 1972 after suffering a fall at his home. Reportedly, his final words were: 'How did the Mets do today?' His legacy has been chronicled in various texts and films, but Kempner's documentary aims to encapsulate all of the aspects of Berg's life that made him so unique. In doing so, she interviewed everyone from former commissioner Bud Selig and White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf to U.S. Senator Edward Markey and several former members of the OSS. Specifically, Kempner hopes to show the film in the United Kingdom, which she says held a special place in Berg's heart. The OSS had an office in London, and it was there, under constant threat from Germany, that Berg and his colleagues schemed to learn the Nazi's nuclear secrets. 'That's where a lot of the planning for how to counter the nuclear espionage happened,' Kempner said of London. 'Of all the countries in Europe I'd like to show the film, it's really England, for the bravery they've shown from the royal family on down, what they endured,' she said. 'And it's something Moe observed.' After screening in Washington on Friday, 'The Spy Behind Home Plate' will be seen in New York, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles as well as 34 other cities. All rights reserved for this news site dailymail and under his responsibility