Mormon Baseball

On their way back from injuries earlier in the season, both Boone Whiting of the Memphis Redbirds (SLC – Pacific Coast League – AAA) and Nik Turley of the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Rail Riders (NYY – International League – AAA) have pitched well, and they both improved their records last week, ahead of the AAA all star game tonight. Whiting was slightly better, earning a win and shutting out his opponent in his 5 innings of work while giving up 2 hits and striking out 7. With the shutout, Whiting’s season era is down to 3.92, mostly making up for the bad outings before his injury. Turley gave up just 1 run in 5 2/3rds while striking out 2 and bringing his season era down below 5.00. Turley has pitched less than 22 innings since returning from the DL.

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In the history of the MLB All Star Game, seventeen Mormons have been selected, including four current players who have been on a MLB roster this year.

As I watched the game this evening, I did the research and put together a list of those Mormons who have been selected in some year. I was surprised to discover that the first Mormon appeared in 1936! And this is only the 3rd year since 1997 that no Mormon player has been selected.

Can you name the four current players who have been all stars? How about the other 13 Mormons who have been selected?

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Unfortunately, none of the active Mormons in baseball’s major leagues will appear in tonight’s Home Run Derby — nor will any appear in tomorrow’s All Star Game. Its an off year for Mormons, I suppose. But as you are watching the Derby, ask your friends the following trivia question:

Which Mormon hit the most home runs in Home Run Derby history?

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Best among Mormon pitchers last week, Doug Fister continues his exceptional performance following his stint on the disabled list earlier this season. With a 2-run 7-inning (2.57 era) start this past week, Fister has his season era down to 2.90, good enough for 18th in the majors, if he had pitched enough innings to qualify. Perhaps the only black mark on the start was that Fister gave up his 7th and 8th walks of the season.

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With baseball very popular in the early 1900s, the editors of the Improvement Era joined many other publications in the U.S. and published stories about baseball. Often these stories were, like so many other stories in religious magazines, didactic in nature — seeking to make a point about moral choices. And while in the long run these stories could have easily turned off kids as much as taught them morality, they were, nevertheless, part of what readers of Church magazines experienced and read.

The following story is one of many published in the Improvement Era that featured baseball as an element of the story. I plan to periodically republish here some of those stories.

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Since he joined the Dodgers last year, Adam Law has seemed to me to be headed to the majors, making his family the 6th three-generation MLB family. And when he performs like he did last week, that possibility seems all the more likely. Law was 14 for 29 (.483) last week, scoring 7 runs, stealing 3 bases and walking twice while earning 2 rbis. And that performance raised his season average to .316 (11th in the California League) and OBP to .391. Law still has a long way to go, but he does seem like he is on his way.

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Cubs second baseman Darwin Barney was great last week — better than any other Mormon in the majors. Barney held his own fireworks show, with his bat this time, on July 2nd and was short of hitting for the cycle by a home run. Barney was 8 for 21 last week (.381) scoring 3 runs and earning an rbi, and in the process raised his average for the season by nearly 25 points to .219—closer to his career norm.

Close on Barney’s heels last week was Adam Rosales, brought up from the minors as a backup infielders for the Rangers. Rosales was 3 for 10 last week with 3 rbis. But given Rosales past performance in the majors, it doesn’t seem likely that he will be able to keep up that average.

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If Mariano Rivera wrote an article for the Ensign, would you be surprised? Would you read the article?

The idea seems crazy—the Ensign doesn’t publish articles like that, does it? I suppose not. But its predecessor, the Improvement Era, published from 1897 to 1970, did publish articles by non-Mormons occasionally, and those articles even included some without a religious message.

And for baseball fans, he best of these articles might be the following article by Walter “Big Train” Johnson, published just two years before he was inducted into the inaugural class of the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

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The Sacramento River Cats’ Shane Peterson has been persistent in his performance at the plate this year. Peterson is among the Pacific Coast League (AAA) leaders in most of the major statistical categories, and this past week was no exception. Peterson was 10 for 26 (.385) for the week, with 7 rbis and 6 runs scored, and he leads the league in hits with 104. His numbers in AAA are strong enought that it seems unlikely that he will stay there, but both last year and earlier this year Peterson’s stints in the majors haven’t lasted.

Also notable last week were Jeff Gelalich and Jacob Hannemann. Gelalich was outstanding for the week, hitting 13 in 27 at bats (.481) and scoring 5 runs. He was promoted from the Midwest League (A) to the California League (A+). And Hannemann, who was 9 for 25 (.360) last week and scored 8 runs with 3 rbis, is near the top in the Midwest League in stolen bases and runs and is currently 16th on the Chicago Cubs top prospects list.

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The standout Mormon in major league baseball last week was clearly Jacoby Ellsbury, who once again showed the best of what he brings to the diamond. Ellsbury was 8 for 23 at the plate (.348), scoring 2 runs and earning 3 rbis with 2 walks. He improved his average for the season to .348 and still maintained 5th place in stolen bases in the majors.

On the mound the standout last week was Jeremy Guthrie, who notched a win in two outings (totalling 14.1 innings) while giving up just 4 earned runs (2.51 era) and striking out 9. The win puts Guthrie one shy of even and gives him a 3.69 era for the season. Last week’s numbers were good, but while Guthrie’s season numbers maybe mediocre, his advantage is his ability to put in a lot of innings — Guthrie is tied for 10th most innings pitched in the majors. Even if the Royals could find a better pitcher to replace him (a questionable  idea), they might be worse off if they needed to use the bullpen more as a result.

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