Sharing the Gospel through Sports

The Mormon Yankees basketball team, April 1956

Beginning in 1937 and continuing off and on throughout the 1950s, missionaries from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Australia played on baseball and basketball teams that became famous throughout Australia. Known popularly as the “Mormon Yankees,” they participated in local, state, and national competitions and even played practice and exhibition games against several Olympic teams preparing for the 1956 Melbourne Olympics. Besides drawing positive attention to the Church, the games, which sometimes drew crowds of up to 5,000 people, gave the missionaries opportunities to make contacts and set up teaching appointments. “We know that basketball in and of itself does not convert the people to the gospel,” said Thomas S. Bingham, president of the Southern Australian Mission in 1957, “but in a country where Mormonism is not generally accepted we feel it can do an immeasurable amount of good in breaking down prejudice and hatred against the Church.” This good publicity may have helped pave the way for a great increase in membership in the Church, which tripled in Australia between 1955 and 1960.