News about Mormons, Mormonism,
and the LDS Church

By Kent Larsen

Sports: Jeff Kent, WNBA Players Shine

NEW YORK, NEW YORK -- Baseball's Jeff Kent, who pulled out of an April slump and has been hot recently, had another stellar week last week, as did the WNBA's Kristen Rasmussen and Natalie Williams. But their performances were tempered by poor performances from the four active Mormon pitchers and a lack of activity among many other Mormon athletes.

Kent was 10 for 24, giving him a .417 average for the week, which he started by going 4 for 4 in the Giant's June 25th game against LA. Kent has been hot recently, bringing his average up to nearly .300 from .265 a month ago. Unfortunately, the Mormon pitchers in baseball aren't doing as well. The best performance among them was from Orioles pitcher Jason Johnson, who gave up just 4 earned runs in 15 innings (2.40 ERA) in two starts last week, but Johnson didn't get enough support in the first of those games, against Toronto June 26th, and ended up with the loss. None of the other pitchers managed an acceptable performance for the week, with Farnsworth getting a 6.77 ERA for the week, Estes a 9.64 ERA and Olivares getting banged around for a horrible 14.54 ERA for the week.

Women's Basketball was much more attractive for the Mormon players. Kristen Rasmussen finally got to put in significant time for the Miami Sol, playing 75 minutes of the team's three games, and essentially doubling the amount of time she has played this season. Rasmussen also scored 18 points (6 ppg) and brought her full-game average up to more than 11 points. Natalie Williams also played well, scoring 41 points over 116 minutes of 3 games, with a full-game average of over 25 points.

In golf, three Mormon pros participated in the Canon Greater Hartford Open, but Dan Forsman was cut, while Jay Don Blake tied for 22nd, earning $27,944.29. On the senior tour, Bruce Summerhays tied for 21st in the U.S. Senior Open, earning $27,788.00. In soccer, Maren Hendershot's Carolina Courage did not play last week.

Meanwhile, two Mormon News subscribers confirmed that Winnipeg Blue Bombers Linebacker Sefa O'Reilly is LDS. We still have a list of 16 possible Mormon players in the CFL. Unfortunately, Mormon News can't track their performances because the CFL doesn't publish game-by-game statistics for each player.

Baseball

Major League Baseball

Position Players:

Jeff Kent

Second Base

San Francisco Giants

	G	AB	R	H	HR	RBI	BB	SO	Avg
This Week	6	24	4	10	1	4	1	4	0.417
YTD	81	296	43	87	11	58	37	53	0.294

Pitchers:

(MH) Shawn Estes

Starting Pitcher

San Francisco Giants

	G	W-L	S	ERA	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO
This Week	2	0-0	0	9.64	9.3	17	10	10	5	3
YTD	15	7-2	0	3.27	96.3	83	36	35	39	59

Kyle Farnsworth

Relief Pitcher

Chicago Cubs

	G	W-L	S	ERA	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO
This Week	4	0-1	0	6.77	2.7	2	2	2	0	3
YTD	38	0-3	0	3.38	37.3	32	14	14	14	60

Mike Fetters

Relief Pitcher

Los Angeles Dodgers

	G	W-L	S	ERA	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO
This Week	1	0-0	0	0.00	1.0	0	0	0	1	2
YTD	25	2-1	1	3.97	22.7	17	11	10	9	21

Jason M. Johnson

Starting Pitcher

Baltimore Orioles

	G	W-L	S	ERA	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO
This Week	2	1-1	0	2.40	15.0	11	4	4	3	6
YTD	17	7-5	0	3.41	105.7	96	48	40	31	54

* Omar Olivares

Starting Pitcher

Pittsburg Pirates

	G	W-L	S	ERA	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO
This Week	4	1-0	0	14.54	4.3	8	9	7	3	2
YTD	21	3-7	0	6.93	76.7	91	64	59	29	53

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

Basketball

NBA

The NBA' season has concluded.

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.

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