Futility Closet

Moe Berg earned his reputation as the brainiest man in baseball -- he had two Ivy League degrees and studied at the Sorbonne. But when World War II broke out he found an unlikely second career, as a spy trying to prevent the Nazis from getting an atomic bomb. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll follow Berg's enigmatic life and its strange conclusion. We'll also consider the value of stripes and puzzle over a fateful accident. Intro: Johann David Steingruber devised floor plans in the shapes of letters. At least six of Felix Mendelssohn's songs were written by his sister Fanny. Sources for our feature on Moe Berg: Nicholas Dawidoff, The Catcher Was a Spy, 1994. Louis Kaufman, Barbara Fitzgerald, and Tom Sewell, Moe Berg: Athlete, Scholar, Spy, 1996. W. Thomas Smith, Encyclopedia of the Central Intelligence Agency, 2003. Glenn P. Hastedt, Spies, Wiretaps, and Secret Operations: An Encyclopedia of American Espionage, 2011. Nicholas Dawidoff, "The Fabled Moe," American Scholar 63:3 (Summe