We’ve done the All-Smith team. We’ve done the All-Canadian team versus the All-Jewish team. And now UmpBump brings you: the All-Mormon team.

There have been nearly enough Mormons in the majors to support a 40-man roster. One thing the All-Mormon team won’t be short on is starting pitching. They’ve got right-handed All-Star Roy Halladay as the ace of the staff (lifetime ERA of 3.63 and Cy Young winner), followed by another All-Star righthander in Vernon Law (1950-1967, ERA of 3.77). After that, they’ve got lefty All-Star Bruce Hurst (1980-1994, ERA of 3.92), righty Kelly Downs (1986-1993, ERA of 3.86) and still-promising righty Jeremy Guthrie (4.11 ERA)

For a closer, it’s hard to do much better than Hall of Famer Dennis Eckersley, a six-time All Star, an MVP, and a Cy Young Award winner. They’ve even got a decent set-up man in the form of All-Star reliever Rick Aguilera (1985-2000, 3.57 ERA). Unfortunately, the middle relief is much less inspiring–Kyle Farnsworth (4.47 ERA), Mike Fetters (3.86 ERA), Jim Gott (3.87 ERA), Ryan Jensen (5.06 ERA), and Jason Johnson (4.99 ERA).

Onto the offense! What kind of lineup could the Church of Latter Day Saints run out there?

Leading off and playing centerfield, you’d have speedy rookie Jacoby Ellsbury—and while I do doubt very much he’ll be hitting .353 for the rest of his career, it’s not a bad start.

Batting second and playing first base, I’ll go with career .289 hitter Wally Joyner, an All-Star and a lefty, who also has some pop.

Third, who but Hall of Famer Harmon Killebrew (1954-1975)? Don’t be fooled by his career .256 batting average. The man compiled a nice .376 OBP by walking his way to victory. Oh, and the 573 homers weren’t bad either. Killebrew played 3B, OF, and 1B in his career, but for the purposes of this exercise, I’m DH-ing him.

In the cleanup spot, it’s got to be MVP second baseman Jeff Kent. A career .290 hitter, Kent has 365 home runs and is a six-time All Star. And, he always bats fourth. Always.

In the five-hole, it’s All-Star Dale “The Murph” Murphy (1976-1993). A .265 right-handed hitter, he also hit for power (racking up 398 career homers). The two-time MVP also played Gold Glove-worthy right field.

Sixth, the left fielder, Dane Iorg (1977-1986). He bats left, to the tune of .276.

Batting seventh, the third baseman, All-Star Vance Law (1980-1991). The son of Vern, above, Vance hit just .256 but managed some power.

Batting eighth and playing short? None other than Bobby Crosby. The 2004 Rookie of the Year may bat just .240, sure, but the only other option was Luis Gomez (1974-1981), who had a career average of .210 and never hit a single home run.

Ninth, the catcher, Alan Ashby (1973-1989). He hits an uninspiring .245, but at least he’s a switch-hitter.

Who do we have on the bench? Ken Hubbs (1961-1963) is a defensive replacement/injury fill-in for Jeff Kent. Hubbs was the first player to win a Gold Glove the same year he collected the Rookie of the Year trophy. Despite hitting only .247, he was considered among the premiere second basemen in the game during his brief time in the majors. (Tragically, he died in a plane crash at the age of 22.)

No team is complete without a fourth outfielder. I suggest righty Barry Bonnell (1977-1986) for this purpose, as he hits a respectable .272. And as an overall utilityman, I’ll go with Brian Banks (1996-2003), who hit only .246 but played most of the positions on the field at some point during his career and was a switch hitter. The backup catcher is John Buck, who hits a paltry .237 but at least has occasional pop.

The result? Not a bad team. Solid starting pitching and a great closer, not to mention one of the best 3-4-5 combos you could hope for. Two Hall of Famers, and two other guys who could feasibly be elected someday. Some Cy Young winners, some Rookies of the Year, some Gold Glovers, MVPs and All-Stars. They’re just a couple of converts away from fixing their middle relief problem.

The All-Mormon Team is definitely a playoff contender. And they’d definitely beat the Canadians.

Smith is one of the most common last names in America, so I got to wondering, what would a team of the greatest Smiths ever to play the game of baseball look like? Sure, it would have the Wizard of Oz at shortstop and all-time saves leader Lee Smith coming in out of the ‘pen in the 9th, but would there be enough talented Smiths to fill out the rest of a major-league roster? And even if there were, would the team be any good? The answer to these questions, I would say, is yes, and yes.

Altogether, 142 Smiths have played in the Major Leagues, including two men known to history only as “Smith 1” and “Smith 2” - they played in only one game each in the 1800s and since only last names were recorded in the box score, their first names have been lost to history.

Some Smiths tried to make up for their boring last name and mediocre baseball ability by acquiring colorful first names or middle names, among them Klondike Smith, Skyrocket Smith, and Phenomenal Smith, but alas, none of these players was awesome enough on the actual baseball diamond to crack our squad.

Anyway, without further ado, here is the All-Time Smith Team (homers and stolen bases are career numbers averaged over a full season; the rest are career totals):

CF Elmer Smith - .310/.398/.434, 5 HR, 30 SB
LF Lonnie Smith - .288/.371/.420, 10 HR, 37 SB
C Earl Smith - .303/.374/.432, 9 HR, 3 SB
1B Reggie Smith - .287/.366/.489, 26 HR, 11 SB
RF Al Smith - .272/.358/.429, 18 HR, 7 SB
3B Red Smith - .278/.353/.377, 4 HR, 17 SB
SS Ozzie Smith - .262/.337/.328, 2 HR, 37 SB
2B Pop Smith - .222/.287/.313, 3 HR, 25 SB

SP Hilton Smith - Negro Leagues
SP Frank Smith - 139-111, 2.59
SP Bryn Smith - 108-94, 3.53
SP Sherry Smith - 114-118, 3.32
SP Zane Smith - 100-115, 3.74

CL Lee Smith - 478 SV, 3.03 ERA
RP Dave Smith - 216 SV, 2.67 ERA
RP Frank Smith - 44 SV, 3.81 ERA

The rest of the bullpen and bench could easily be filled out with any of the vast number of relievers and benchwarmers named “Smith” who made The Show for a few years and did decently, but not great.

As you can see this is actually a pretty strong team. Not much power, but a ridiculous amount of speed on the basepaths and very strong pitching. Projected leadoff man and centerfielder Elmer Smith had a career OBP of almost .400, and was also a mini Babe Ruth, beginning his career as a pitcher and compiling a 75-57 record and a 3.35 ERA in 149 games including two 20-win seasons. Lonnie Smith was an outstanding outfielder for the Phillies, Cardinals, Royals, and Braves in the 80s, and once stole as many as 68 bases in a season. Earl Smith was an astonishingly good-hitting catcher in the 1920s, although somewhat of a clogger on the basepaths, not surprisingly. Cleanup hitter Reggie Smith was one of the better switch-hitters of all time, and leads the squad with 314 career home runs. He actually played more in the outfield, but finished his career at first, and the other 141 Smiths had ridiculously little experience playing first-sacker. Ozzie Smith is of course the undisputed greatest defensive shortstop in baseball history, and turned himself into a rather decent hitter by the end of his career. If there is one big weakness in the batting order, it is second baseman Pop Smith and his pathetic .600 career OPS, but he must have been pretty awesome on defense because he was allowed to play 1112 games in the Major Leagues, and at least he did have a bit of speed.

But it is the pitching staff which may actually be the true strength of this team. Staff ace Hilton Smith, the only Hall-of-Famer on the team, was probably the second best pitcher to play in the Negro Leagues, behind only Satchel Paige. He played in the outfield on the days he didn’t pitch, and was quite a good hitter, batting as high as .431 in 1946. Frank Smith had two seasons of at least 20 wins and another with 19. Bryn Smith was a very under-appreciated pitcher in the 1980s because he played for the Montreal Expos and didn’t get much run support, but he did manage to win 18 games in 1985. The bullpen is also a strength with three pitchers who served as closers, led by the great Lee Smith, and by Dave Smith who was actually even better than Lee, but had a shorter career.

Final Verdict: A pretty awesome team which could probably win a World Series, especially if some of these guys were in their primes, when their numbers were even better than the career averages/totals you see here. The lack of power is a bit of a concern, but with amazing speed up and down the lineup and the pitching to make small leads stand up, they could make little ball work.

Ian Snell is having a breakout year of sorts. The Pittsburgh righty has compiled a 3.62 ERA and 1.21 WHIP with a very good 3:1 strikeout-to-walk ratio over 131 2/3 innings. I like what he’s done enough to have mentioned him in a previous post regarding All-Star snubs. Too bad he plays for the Pirates or else he’d probably have a better record than 7-8.

And his family probably wouldn’t call him a “loser”.

Following last night’s pitiful performance by the Pirates defense, Snell, who was removed from the game after only four innings and 63 pitches thrown, made some not too subtle comments to reporters regarding his teammates.

“All I know is that I’m going to take the blame,” Snell said. “Everything’s my fault. I don’t want to put any pressure on the team. Nothing.” He paused again, then made a 180-degree turn.

“There were some balls I thought we could have caught. We could have given up only three runs. I could have stayed in the game. I threw 50 pitches, and I’m out of the game. But they didn’t give those guys errors, either, so … it didn’t work out in my favor.”

In the guy’s defense, the gloves behind him in the fourth inning in particular were pretty horrendous. After getting Carlos Delgado to fly to left for the first out, Paul Lo Duca lofted a high flyball that was well short of the warning track in left-center. Instead of it being the 2nd out of the inning, CFer Xavier Nady, usually (and wisely) used as a corner outfielder, couldn’t get to it in time while it looked like LFer Jason Bay simply gave up. After Shawn Green drove Lo Duca home with a bullet up the middle, catcher Ronny Paulino unsuccessfully tried to backhand a slider that was barely in the dirt - Tom Emanski would not approve - which advanced Green to second. Lastings Milledge then proceeded to hit a laser right at 3rd baseman Matt Kata who let the ball go through his legs, scoring Green from 2nd. For the icing on the cake, Mets pitcher John Maine swung at a high fastball and took it over the fence for a 2-run homer.

If the Pirates OF did not consist of two below-average corner outfielders and a catcher (Ryan Doumit) , Lo Duca’s double would have been an out. If Kata knew how to catch a ball that he didn’t even need to move for, Snell would’ve been out of the inning. Instead, there were four runs on the board - all earned, thanks to the scoreboard keeper inexplicably giving Milledge a hit - and Snell was done. It was comical to everyone but Pirates fans and players.

Snell certainly didn’t think it was funny. When questioned by reporters how it felt to, well, suck as much as the Pirates do, Snell told them to ask his teammates that same question. He continued dramatically:

“I’m starting to break. I’m getting stressed out. I don’t know about these other guys, but I just want to win. I don’t want to be called a loser. Man, even my family calls our team losers, and I don’t want anyone to say that about our team.”

Dude, that’s really bad. Especially when your family comes from Dover, Delaware.

Last March, I went to the Tampa to watch some spring training baseball with my dad and friends Zvee, Dan and Henry. While we were watching Jason Marquis pitch, Henry pointed out that we were privileged to be watching one of the greatest Jewish baseball players of all-time. He also mentioned that, as it stands, the list of great Jewish baseball players isn’t all that impressive.

Recently, Justin Morneau hit his 30^th home run for the Twins, making him the first Twins player to hit 30 in a season since 1987. It also made him only the fourth Canadian to hit 30 homers.

So here’s the question: if you assembled two teams, one made up of the greatest Jewish ball players of all time and one made up of the best Canadians, which would win?

The best Canadian team (and feel free to disagree) would probably look something like this:

Larry Walker OF Had the luxury of playing in Coors before they starting freezing their balls.
Rob Ducey OF He was once traded for himself.
Corey Koskie 3B Koskie’s entry music when he comes to bat is usually a song by Rush, also Canadian.
Justin Morneau 1B Having one heck of a year.
George Selkirk RF Replaced Babe Ruth in the Yankees’ lineup in 1934, hit .290 over nine seasons, topping .300 five times and twice driving in more than 100 runs.
Jeff Heath OF From 1945 to 1955 he held the major league record for career home runs by a player born outside the United States.
Bob Emslie P Was the first Canadian pitcher of note, and won more games in a big league season than any other Canadian, posting a 32-17 mark for the 1884 Baltimore Orioles. A poor start in 1885 sent him back to the minors, with a career major league record of just 44-44.
Ferguson Jenkins P Was probably the best Canadian player of all, a 6′5″ right-hander from Chatham, Ontario, who compiled a 284-226 record over nineteen seasons from 1965 to 1983. At his peak, Jenkins (the only Canadian-born Hall of Famer) won 20 games or more seven times in eight years.
Eric Gagne P Was on pace to become the most dominant closer ever. Then he went off the juice.
Rheal Cormier P Otherwise known in Philadelphia as the guy who only allows inherited runners to score, but never his own, leading to a deceptively low ERA.

The Jewish All-Star Team would look like this:

Moe Berg C Was not only a secret agent in Germany and Japan in the 1930s, but also worked in the OSS during World War II.
Hammerin’ Hank Greenberg 1B A four-time All-Star and two-time MVP in just nine seasons.
Buddy Myer SS Won the batting title in 1935.
Al Rosen 3B A four-time All-Star, led the league in dingers twice, had five straight 100-plus RBI campaigns, and won the MVP award in 1953.
Shawn Green OF A one-time 30-30 player, now finishing up his career with the Mets.
Sid Gordon OF A two-time All-Star who cranked 25-plus homers in five straight seasons and three years of 100-plus ribbies.
Gabe Kapler OF Gets included on this list just for having rock-hard abdominals.
Sandy Koufax P Just the greatest left-handed pitcher of all time.
Ken Holtzman P Threw two no-hitters for the Cubs and won three World Series rings with the A’s.

As you can see, it was hard to field complete teams on either side. But at the end of the day, I have to say the Jewish team is a little more impressive. Koufax was the man. There aren’t any names like that on Team Canada. Who knows? Maybe in ten years we’ll look at the Canadian roster and see two future hall of famers in Justin Morneau and Eric Gagne? But for now, it’s the Hebrew squad all the way.