Mormon Baseball

Archive for the ‘News’ Category

The New York Times recently published an interactive map, A Map of Baseball Nation, which shows what team is most liked in each zip code across the U.S., based on what team they have “liked” on Facebook. Its kind of fun to see the geographic spread of the fans.

I was particularly intrigued to see how Utah appeared — looking at the county by county data no team gets the majority, and, I was surprised to find out, the Yankees and Red Sox were the most popular teams, depending on the area. Why would that be so? Do Mormons prefer the Yankees and Red Sox?

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As spring training progresses, many news websites and blogs are wondering whether or not Darwin Barney will continue starting at second base for the Chicago Cubs, and even whether or not he will remain with the team. The problem focuses on Barney’s poor performance at the plate last year, the worst of his major league career.

Barney’s strength has been his fielding, where he won a gold glove in 2012 and committed just 2 errors at 2nd that year. And he tied the major league record for the number of consecutive errorless games at second base: 141.

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Last week BYU pitcher Kolton Mahoney, beginning his first season back after serving an LDS mission in Santa Rosa, California, threw a no-hitter against Nichols State in Thibodaux, Louisiana. The game was just the 7th no-hitter in the BYU baseball team’s 58-year history.

“Everything was working,” Mahoney said. “I could command my fast ball and my curve was filthy tonight, it was moving a lot, I could throw it for strikes, but my slider was my out pitch tonight. I started to feel it in the sixth or seventh inning. I knew it (the no-hitter) was definitely there going into the ninth inning and I wasn’t going to go for anything less.”

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Bryce Harper (known as Bam Bam) is perhaps the last person you would expect to be a baseball historian. But Harper started Spring Training drawing a historical analogy to his injury running into a wall last year. He was, it seems, just like Babe Ruth.

On July 5, 1924, Harper recounted, Babe Ruth ran into the wall in Washington DC’s Griffith Stadium, knocking himself out cold for 5 minutes. Despite that, the Bambino refused to leave the game and went 3 for 3. That is the kind of all-out play that Harper is known for, so maybe there is something to the analogy.

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Oakland As 2nd baseman and LDS Church member Eric Sogard finished behind the Mets’ David Wright in the final in MLB’s “Face of MLB” popularity contest. The twitter-based vote finished at 8am EST today and the results were announced on MLB Network’s Hot Stove at 9am.

The Face of MLB contest is basically an MLB promotional campaign to engage fans for the upcoming season. Each team nominates a player who then faces a player from another team in a day-long twitter vote. The winner advances to the next round in an elimination contest that ended with the final round that finished today.

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Oakland As 2nd baseman and LDS Church member Eric Sogard has reached the final in MLB’s “Face of MLB” popularity contest. Sogard faces the Mets’ David Wrigth in the twitter-based vote today, starting at 9am EST.

Fans can vote on twitter up to 25 times until 8am tomorrow.

The Face of MLB contest is basically an MLB promotional campaign to engage fans for the upcoming season. Each team nominates a player who then faces a player from another team in a day-long twitter vote. The winner advances to the next round in an elimination contest that ends with the final today.

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The nerd-look is benefiting LDS ballplayer Eric Sogard, who has reached the final four in MLB’s “Face of MLB” popularity contest. Sogard faces the Blue Jays’ José Bautista in the twitter-based vote today, starting at 9am EST.

The Face of MLB contest is basically an MLB promotional campaign to engage fans for the upcoming season. Each team nominates a player who then faces a player from another team in a day-long twitter vote. The winner advances to the next round in an elimination contest that will end this week.

Today Sogard faces the Blue Jay’s José Bautista, who has been actively seeking voters by agreeing to follow their twitter accounts (he already is following over 170,000 fans). Fans can vote up to 25 times by twitter for the player they like. To vote for Sogard simply send a tweet with the hash tags #EricSogard and #FaceOfMLB.

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Somewhere someone has named the things that major leaguers do these days during the off-season — perhaps something that is the equivalent of “stupid human tricks.” Its not that there is anything wrong with what they do. Its just that sometimes it reveals something unusual about them, such as odd musical tastes from someone in a testosterone-laden profession, like the Royal’s Jeremy Guthrie.

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What’s a ballplayer to do during the off-season? For many minor-league players, such as Bryan Harper, it helps if you can bring in some cash.

The minimum salary for minor league players NOT on the 40-man roster is just $7,500 a season, which means that earning something on the off-season is a must. And if you can give some kids a bit of a thrill in the process, so much the better. Harper does just that when he shows up in Las Vegas inner-city schools as a substitute teacher.

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Jack Morris

Jack Morris’ candidacy for the Baseball Hall of Fame ended yesterday when he failed to get the required 75% of the ballots needed. Morris has been on the ballot for the past 15 years, and topped out last year with the highest percentage of the ballots of any Mormon who didn’t make the Hall.

He also is, with Dale Murphy, the second Mormon to last all 15 years on the ballot, and the third to be on the ballot for multiple years without making the Hall (Vern Law was on the Hall of Fame ballot for 7 years in the 1970s before he was dropped).

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