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1930s Moe Berg Game Worn Pants
Moe Berg was the most fascinating, and most mysterious, man ever to wear a big league uniform. A 3rd-string catcher with the Senators and Braves in the '30s with a lifetime .241 average, Berg was clearly over-qualified for such a menial role, as he held degrees from 3 universities and was a lawyer, mathematician and linguist. However, it served as a useful cover for his real job -- as a U.S. government spy. This explains why he was chosen to go on a tour of Japan in the early '30s with Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, so he could take espionage photos. Later, during WWII, he was an atomic spy gathering info on top German scientists and went on missions that entailed assassination. While Casey Stengel once called the inscrutable Berg "the strangest man ever to play baseball," he didn't know the half of it. Few did, until word leaked out in the '60s. Berg, though, refused to address his James Bond-like past and died in 1972 adhering to his code of silence. Consequently, demand for Berg memorabilia has shot through the roof in recent years. This pair of Berg's game-worn heavy gray wool pants from the '30s is one of the very few surviving pieces of his equipment left. Manufactured by Spalding, with a label in the back of the waistband and the name "Moe Berg" chain-stitched in raised red letters to the right of the label. 1" silk lining around the bottom interior of each leg and heavy lining on the inside waist and "fly" areas. Three of the 4 button are original. Pants, which seem wide enough to fit an elephant, are well worn with several period repairs. Great use includes embedded dirt splotches on the upper right thigh, hip and fly area. Pants are impressively mounted under glass in a 34 x 49" framed display along with a cut Berg signature in blue ink (7/10) on the lower left and a plaque on the lower right reading "Moe Berg 1930's Game Worn Pants." Amazing display befitting an amazing fellow, who just may have introduced himself to some frauleins at a Berlin bacarrat table as "Berg, Moe Berg."
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