A Legend Like No Other: Yankees Shortstop Turned CIA Operative

Abstract

A Legend Like No OtherYankees Shortstop Turned CIA Operative Anne R. Keene (bio) Tom Carroll is the only major league player to earn a World Series ring and the Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) Intelligence Medal of Merit. In 1955, the eighteen-year-old University of Notre Dame sophomore from Queens made headlines as a "Bonus Baby," signing with the New York Yankees for a whopping $50,000.1 Teammates included Mickey Mantle, Whitey Ford, Don Larsen, Phil Rizzuto, Eddie Robinson (who died at age 100 in October 2021), and the affable catcher-philosopher Yogi Berra, who earned a record ten World Series rings as a Yankees player. Click for larger view View full resolution Fig. 1. Tom Carroll's 1956 Topps baseball card In 1956, Carroll became the youngest major leaguer to earn a World Series title when the Yankees defeated the Brooklyn Dodgers 4–3, and Don Larsen pitched history's only World Series perfect game, at Yankee Stadium. But after the champagne was uncorked in the clubhouse, the media-shy shortstop slipped on his gold and diamond championship ring and realized that his life had a more important calling overseas. In his prime, Carroll stood six feet three with classic Black Irish looks and killer eyebrows, bearing a resemblance to Scottish actor Sean Connery, who portrayed British secret agent James Bond. After Carroll retired from baseball in 1960, he worked in the most senior levels of global intelligence. Cool silence was his hallmark, and he never lifted the veil of secrecy about his undercover work with legendary colleagues including British MI6 officers who inspired characters in John le Carré's espionage novels. When Carroll died from melanoma in September 2021 at age eighty-five, sportswriters compared him to Morris "Moe" Berg, the elusive major-league [End Page 112] catcher and Office of Strategic Services (OSS) operative whose undercover work inspired the book and major motion picture The Catcher Was a Spy. But unlike Berg, a drifter who never married or established a lasting career in intelligence, Carroll was a squared-away family man who lived for public service and left the baseball stories at home. In an interview following Carroll's death, Jack Devine, former chief of worldwide operations for the CIA, described his friend as the strong, silent type who never rolled in his glory days with the Yankees. "Now, of course . . . I knew it. Everyone who worked with Tom talked about the Yankees behind his back. With Tom, it was never about his ego: it was always about doing the job; it was about getting a win for the team," said Devine, who ran Charlie Wilson's War in Afghanistan and wrote the memoir Good Hunting: An American Spymaster's Story.2 the shortstop who was a spy As the Cold War escalated, Carroll appeared in a total of fifty games with the Yankees from 1955 to 1956 and fourteen games for the Kansas City Athletics in 1959. By 1960, he was back in the minors. After being struck in the mouth by a fastball at a twilight game and losing a row of front teeth, the twenty-four-year-old shortstop and third baseman returned to Notre Dame with a porcelain dental bridge.3 One year later, he graduated magna cum laude with a degree in history and completed graduate work in international relations. Carroll could have become a lawyer or joined the foreign service, but it was the CIA that took notice of the brilliant, cool-headed ballplayer who refused to lose. In the CIA, Carroll was known as a fiercely loyal lifeline who protected his assets no matter what. Sports were part of his cover: he played golf with ambassadors, station chiefs, and heads of state, and squash with British spies and a "deep cover" officer at a Caracas sports club. In London, Carroll was assigned as George H. W. Bush's tennis partner when Bush was the head of the CIA. "My father thought Bush to be a graceful gentleman and a competitive athlete, who was not always running for election," says John, Carroll's son.4 the spell of the pinstripes Thomas Edward Carroll Jr. was born on September...