News about Mormons, Mormonism,
and the LDS Church

By Kent Larsen

Sports: Revamped Sports Stats Gives More Information

NEW YORK, NEW YORK -- Mormon News has made some changes to our weekly Sports Statistics, hoping that it will clear up questions we get about the Mormon affiliation of the athletes we include. In addition, Mormon News' subscribers have helped identify two WNBA players, and we are looking for information about players in the Canadian Football League, which begins play this month. Except for baseball, last week was a slow week for most Mormon pro athletes.

In response to queries from subscribers and visitors to the Mormon News website, Mormon News has added affiliation information to the Mormon Professional Athlete sports statistics that we provide weekly. The added information makes it clearer whether the athlete is LDS or simply has Mormon Heritage, and it identifies some athletes whose Mormon affiliation is very likely, but which we have not been able to confirm. Those athletes that are inactive LDS Church members or who simply have Mormon heritage have now been listed with a (MH) in front of their names. An asterix (*) precedes the names who seem very likely to be Mormon, but which we haven't been able to confirm. As always, we are interested in getting more accurate information.

With the NBA championships starting this week, Mark Madsen is the only Mormon player remaining on one of the two teams remaining. He was idle with the rest of the Los Angeles Lakers as they awaited the results of the Philadelphia 76ers-Milwaukee Bucks playoff, which resulted in the elimination of Mark Pope and the Bucks. Pope only played one minute of one game this past week.

The main action remained in baseball, where Jeff Kent had one of his strongest weeks so far this year. Kent went 10 for 29, scoring five runs over six games, but only managed to get a single RBI, leaving him back nearly 20 from the RBI leader in the National League. Wally Joyner had an off week, managing just 1 hit in 12 at bats over five games.

Pitcher Shawn Estes also had a strong game facing the Arizona Diamondbacks, blanking them over seven innings and only giving up five hits. But that effort didn't give him a win, as San Francisco failed to score, and lost the game in the final two innings. Relief pitchers Kyle Farnsworth and Mike Fetters both gave up an earned run apiece in their few innings pitched, giving them average performances for the week. In contrast to Estes, the Pirates' Omar Olivares was a disaster, giving up 11 runs in eight innings over two games.

In the initial WNBA action, the Miami Sol's Kristen Rasmussen saw 10 minutes of playing time in the Sol's first game, while Natalie Williams was a key part of the Utah Starzz' performance, playing about half of each of the teams' two games and averaging 13.5 points per game.

Most of the Mormons on the golf tours were idle last week. The exceptions were Mike Weir, who tied for 30th in the Memorial Tournament, and Bruce Summerhays, who tied for 34th in the Bellsouth Senior Classic. In Soccer Maren Hendershot again filled a substitute roll, playing the final two mintes of the Courage's win against Atlanta.

Baseball

Major League Baseball

Position Players:

Brian Bean	Catcher	Chicago Cubs
[Playing in Minors for Iowa Cubs]

McKay Christensen	Center Field	Chicago White Sox
[Playing in Minors for Charlotte]

Wally Joyner

First Base

Anaheim Angels

	G	AB	R	H	HR	RBI	BB	SO	Avg
This Week	5	12	0	1	0	1	1	1	0.083
YTD	46	133	14	34	3	13	11	17	0.256

Jeff Kent

Second Base

San Francisco Giants

	G	AB	R	H	HR	RBI	BB	SO	Avg
This Week	6	29	5	10	0	1	3	5	0.345
YTD	56	209	27	57	8	40	22	39	0.273

Pitchers:

Shawn Estes

Starting Pitcher

San Francisco Giants

	G	W-L	S	ERA	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO
This Week	1	0-0	0	0.00	7.0	5	0	0	2	2
YTD	9	4-2	0	2.79	58.0	47	19	18	22	41

Kyle Farnsworth

Relief Pitcher

Chicago Cubs

	G	W-L	S	ERA	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO
This Week	3	0-0	0	3.00	3.0	0	1	1	3	8
YTD	27	0-1	0	2.96	27.3	24	9	9	11	48

Mike Fetters

Relief Pitcher

Los Angeles Dodgers

	G	W-L	S	ERA	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO
This Week	3	1-0	0	5.42	1.7	2	1	1	1	0
YTD	20	2-0	0	4.42	18.3	15	10	9	8	16

* Omar Olivares

Starting Pitcher

Pittsburg Pirates

	G	W-L	S	ERA	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO
This Week	2	0-1	0	12.38	8	16	11	11	2	5
YTD	11	2-6	0	6.56	59	69	44	43	21	45

Garret Stephenson	Starting Pitcher	St Louis Cardinals
[On the Disabled List - out for the season]

Basketball

NBA

WNBA

Football

NFL

The NFL season has ended.

CFL

The CFL season begins June 20th.

Wide receiver Ben Cahoon of the Montreal Alouettes is LDS, but we don't yet have a source for statistics on him.

We have also identified the following possible Mormon players, based on the 2001 Rosters:

Player	Team	College
Chris Ellison	Saskatchewan Rough Riders	BYU
Curtis Marsh	Saskatchewan Rough Riders	Utah
Omaar Morgan	Saskatchewan Rough Riders	BYU
Rob Hitchcock	Hamilton Tiger-Cats	Weber State
Trevor Shaw	Hamilton Tiger-Cats	Weber State
Kevin Alexander	Montreal Alouettes	Utah State
Darnell Arceneaux	Montreal Alouettes	Utah
Anthony Calvillo	Montreal Alouettes	Utah State
Josh Cochran	Montreal Alouettes	Utah
Neal Fort	Montreal Alouettes	BYU
Chad Folk	Toronto Argonauts	Utah
Profail Greer	Toronto Argonauts	Utah State
Errol Martin	Toronto Argonauts	Utah
Morgan Welch	Toronto Argonauts	Weber State
Brandon Dyson	Winnipeg Blue Bombers	Utah State
Moe Elewonibi	Winnipeg Blue Bombers	BYU

Hockey

NHL

The NHL's regular season has ended, and the only Mormon player we know is not on a team playing in the playoffs.

Golf

PGA Tour

Senior PGA Tour

Soccer

WUSA

* Mormon News has enough information to make it likely that this athlete is either Mormon or has Mormon heritage. But we have so far been unable to confirm this suspicion.

(MH) - Mormon Heritage - This athlete is either an inactive LDS Church member, or has Mormon heritage.

[an error occurred while processing this directive]