Watch the movie, which is based on a true story, on Kanopy ahead of time and bring your
thoughts and reflections to the discussion. Kanopy is free with your library card.
Moe Berg, a 15-year baseball veteran, joins the war effort as a spy to beat Nazi Germany in
the race to build the first atomic bomb. In 1936, Berg is playing for the Boston Red Sox
near the end of a long, if undistinguished, pro career. On a goodwill baseball exhibition
tour of Japan, Berg sneaks onto the roof of a Tokyo hospital to covertly film Tokyo's
harbor and Navy shipyards.
The Office of Strategic Services Chief to whom he presents the film is impressed by Berg’s
enterprise, as well as the extensive language skills that Berg has picked up at Princeton
and elsewhere, and Berg is hired. Werner Heisenberg, who won the Nobel Prize in 1932
for pioneering quantum physics, is now in charge of the Nazis’ attempts to create an atom
bomb. If he succeeds, the Germans could win the war.
Berg is smuggled into Italy and then Switzerland, with the task to discover if Heisenberg is
anywhere near that goal. If so, it will fall to Berg to assassinate the brilliant physicist.
Casey Stengel once described Berg as "the strangest man ever to play baseball." His is the
only baseball on display at the headquarters of the CIA. Hosted by RiverWest Village.
Zoom Link:
https://bit.ly/3oFYTr5
Meeting ID: 890 1605 9225, Passcode: 486547
Attend by Phone: 253-215-8782