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Sports spies

Morris ‘Moe’ Berg was a Major League Baseball catcher, a whip-smart Princeton graduate, and a lawyer who spoke at least 10 languages. Berg (played by Paul Rudd in The Catcher Was a Spy) was also on the US government payroll - and he’s certainly not the only athlete recruited for espionage. Find out which other sports celebrities were spies on the side!

JOCKS WHO SPIED

Secret packages

P.O. Box 1142, a top-secret US military program at Fort Hunt - now a park in northern Virginia - helped American POWs escape from WWII German camps. Captured US soldiers received ‘care packages’ from home, including baseballs stuffed with radio transmitters, but that’s just the start of this particular P.O. Box’s secrets.

CURVE BALLS

The not-so-beautiful game

It was high summer in Italy when David Platt scored the last-minute goal against Belgium that saw England qualify for the World Cup quarter-finals in 1990. Garry Rogers was cheering on the sidelines but he wasn’t just an overexcited fan. Rogers was working undercover, infiltrating Britain's soccer hooligans and their dark world of booze, beatings, and belligerence.

TRUE SPIES

Rodman diplomacy

When former President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un arrived in Singapore for a 2018 summit, an unusual guest was on hand - legendary Detroit Pistons and Chicago Bulls star Dennis Rodman. So was he working for the CIA or just practicing basketball diplomacy?

SCORING POINTS

Shadowlands

For more than a decade, a mysterious team called Shadow competed at the top end of the Can-Am racing series and later in Formula One. Motorsport is rife with espionage and intrigue, but this story took it one step further. Shadow’s owner was Don Nichols, a military intelligence operative who spoke fluent Japanese, but what was Nichols up to?

WHEELING AND DEALING

Olympic spies

The 1956 Olympics in Australia were a cauldron of international intrigue and gamesmanship. The tension spilled over into a bloody and violent water polo game between Hungary and the Soviet Union - the so-called ‘Blood in the Water’ match. Behind the scenes, the Russians were petrified of defections while US spies encouraged deserters.

COLD WAR GAMES

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