News about Mormons, Mormonism,
and the LDS Church

By Kent Larsen

Sports: Subscriber Identifies Pitcher Veres as Mormon

NEW YORK, NEW YORK -- Mormon News subscriber Brian McConnell reports that St. Louis Cardinals relief pitcher Dave Veres is an inactive LDS Church member, increasing the number of Mormon pitchers in major league baseball to eight. But the Mormon athletes in baseball, and elsewhere, gave mediocre performances, except for relief pitcher Kyle Farnsworth, who managed a 0.00 ERA over 4 2/3rds innings.

Two of the Mormon pitchers, Omar Olivares and Roy Halladay were idle as baseball faced a short week that started with the all-star break. Those who pitched manged ERAs that ranged from an acceptable 3.00 (Shawn Estes) to a poor 6.75 (Mike Fetters and Dave Veres). Even Jeff Kent was merely good, going 5 for 15 in four games. Kent's performance was actually better, 6 of 17 (.353) if you include his performance in the All-star game. Kent, the only Mormon in the game, also scored the National League's only run.

In basketball, the Utah Starzz' Natalie Williams was off for the week, scoring just 11 points per game instead of her usual 14+ while Kristen Rasmussen of the Miami Sol managed just 2 points per game instead of 3.4. Meanwhile, Maren Hendershot of the Carolina Courage in the WUSA was stuck on the bench again last week, again making it in the game for just 1 minute, but still drawing a foul in that one minute.

On the PGA tour, Jay Don Blake, Keith Clearwater, Dan Forsman and Mike Reid all entered the Greater Milwaukee Open, and Clearwater was cut for the ninth time this year (out of 13 events entered). The others finished tied for 28th, 47th and 75th respectively. Senior Pro Bruce Summerhays, while he finished, also didn't play as well as he has, tieing for 59th after recording an 82 in the 3rd round.

Baseball

Major League Baseball

Position Players:

Jeff Kent

Second Base

San Francisco Giants

	G	AB	R	H	HR	RBI	BB	SO	Avg
This Week	4	15	1	5	0	2	1	3	0.333
YTD	92	342	47	102	12	66	41	60	0.298

Pitchers:

(MH) Shawn Estes

Starting Pitcher

San Francisco Giants

	G	W-L	S	ERA	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO
This Week	1	0-1	0	3.00	6	6	3	2	7	2
YTD	17	7-4	0	3.48	106	97	43	41	49	64

Kyle Farnsworth

Relief Pitcher

Chicago Cubs

	G	W-L	S	ERA	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO
This Week	4	0-0	0	0.00	4.7	1	0	0	0	5
YTD	44	0-3	0	2.93	43.0	33	14	14	14	65

Mike Fetters

Relief Pitcher

Los Angeles Dodgers

	G	W-L	S	ERA	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO
This Week	2	0-0	0	6.75	1.3	1	1	1	0	0
YTD	29	2-1	1	6.48	25.0	26	21	18	11	22

Roy Halladay

Relief Pitcher

Toronto Blue Jays

	G	W-L	S	ERA	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO
This Week	Did not pitch				0.0	0	0	0	0	0
YTD	2	0-0	0	9.72	8.3	14	9	9	3	11

Jason M. Johnson

Starting Pitcher

Baltimore Orioles

	G	W-L	S	ERA	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO
This Week	1	0-1	0	5.68	6.3	6	4	4	1	6
YTD	19	8-6	0	3.36	118.0	107	53	44	36	64

* Omar Olivares

Relief Pitcher

Pittsburg Pirates

	G	W-L	S	ERA	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO
This Week	Did not pitch				0.0	0	0	0	0	0
YTD	22	3-7	0	7.04	78.0	93	66	61	29	53

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

(MH) Dave Veres

Relief Pitcher

BSt Louis Cardinals

	G	W-L	S	ERA	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO
This Week	2	0-0	0	6.75	1.3	2	0	0	0	0
YTD	39	0-0	0	3.44	36.7	30	0	0	0	0

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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