Hot Baseball Wife: Michelle Burrell

Monday is Hot Baseball Wife Day here at UmpBump, and this week’s honoree is Michelle Burrell, the wife of former Phillies outfielder and current Tampa Bay Rays DH Pat Burrell.
Before marrying Pat, former Michelle Fonseca served a five-year tour of duty in the US Marines. She credits her time in the Marines with developing her love of physical fitness, which recently inspired her to open up a cycling fitness center in Tampa, Florida.
Michelle and Pat got engaged in the spring of 2007 (pictures after the jump) and were married the following offseason, on November 10, 2007, in California.
1 Comment »
Hot Baseball Wife: Christina Markakis

If America’s single young women have not been paying close attention, they will be greatly disappointed to know that Orioles right fielder Nick Markakis (or as Umpbumper Sarah Green prefers to pronounce it, “Nick Mmmmmmarkakis”), is no longer on the market, having married his wife Christina this past offseason.
The former Christina Dutko, of Boca Raton, Florida, graduated from Florida Atlantic University with a degree in Education, and worked as an elementary school teacher and professional cycling aerobics traner before moving north to Baltimore to live with Nick and raise their child, son Taylor, who was born on March 11, 2009.
On May 29, Nick and Christina announced the establishment of the “Right Side Foundation,” which will focus on improving the lives of underprivileged children in the state of Maryland. No word on what will happen to the title of the foundation, a pun on the fact that Nick plays right field, if Nick ever switches positions.
More pictures after the jump…
13 Comments »
Hot Baseball Wife: Leslee Holliday

Monday is Hot Baseball Wife Day here at UmpBump, and this week’s honoree is Leslee Holliday, wife of Oakland A’s outfielder Matt Holliday.
The couple met in 1998, when Matt had just signed his first pro contract out of high school and was still living with his family in Stillwater, Oklahoma, and Leslee was a freshman at the University of Oklahoma. The couple has two children, sons Ethan and Jackson.
More pictures after the jump…
2 Comments »
Hot Baseball Wife: Rie Park

Monday is Hot Baseball Wife Day here at UmpBump, and this week’s honoree is Rie Park, the wife of Phillies hurler Chan Ho Park.
Rie grew up in Japan, as a third generation Korean-Japanese (”Rie” is the Japanese spelling of her name. Her Korean name is “Ri-Hye”). Her father, businessman Park Choong-Seo, is the 76th richest man in Japan.
After graduating from prestigious Sophia University in Tokyo, Rie moved to America to study French Cuisine at the Culinary Institute of America, and actually worked for a time as a French chef before meeting Chan Ho.
The couple was introduced to each other by a mutual friend, and spoke several times on the phone before finally meeting in person. “He was really odd,” Rie recalled. “He kept calling me early in the morning for three straight days.” But when she finally met him, “it felt as though I had known him for a long time.”
After less than a year of dating the couple was married in 2005, in a wedding in Seoul that was attended by Chan Ho’s MLB buddies Hee Seop Choi and Jae Weong Seo.
The couple now has two children – a three year old daughter Elynne, born in 2006, and a 9-month-old daughter born last year, whose name does not appear to be known by the internets.
The two seem to be very much in love, with Chan Ho claiming that his wife’s cooking is even better than his mother’s and Rie saying that Chan Ho scores 100 out of 100 on the good husband scale, particularly praising him because he “willingly changes diapers and bathes the babies.”
Rie’s latest project is a Korean cookbook, entitled Rie’s Kitchen, in which she outlines over 160 different recipes she has cooked for Chan Ho during their marriage. All proceeds are being donated to charity.
More pictures after the jump…
Comment now »
Hot Baseball Wife: Maki Ofuji

Monday is Hot Baseball Wife Day here at UmpBump, and today’s entry is Maki Ofuji, the wife of Seattle Mariners catcher Kenji Johjima. Born in Kyushu, Maki started modelling in high school and soon began appearing as a model in commercial ad campaigns. By the age of 20, she was already being hailed as one of the “Queens of Kyushu advertising.” She became so popular that she even began appearing in her own line of “idol” videos and photobooks.
Maki met Kenji Johjima when he was a highly touted rookie on the Fukuoka Daiei Hawks. The couple was married in 2000, after which Maki gave up her modeling career to focus on raising a family. Together the couple has three children – sons Yuta and Keita, and daughter Miu.
According to the Japanese version of Wikipedia, Maki and Kenji are famous in Japan for their harmonious marriage. Kenji famously once said “Without the support of my wife and children, my life would not be possible,” which was considered an incredibly moving and sensitive thing for a Japanese man to say.
More pictures after the jump…
1 Comment »
Hot Baseball Wife: Julianna Zobrist

Monday is Hot Baseball Wife Day here at UmpBump, and this week’s honoree is Julianna Zobrist, aspiring singer of Christian-themed electronic pop/rock music and wife of Tampa Bay Rays utilityman Ben Zobrist.
Little information about Julianna is available on the internets, but we do know that she had quite a busy winter this past year, giving birth to the couple’s first child, Zion, and releasing her self-published debut album, The Tree, the title song of which husband Ben has been using as his entry music at Rays home games.
More pictures after the jump…
2 Comments »
Hot Baseball Wife: Erin Romero

Monday is Hot Baseball Wife Day here at UmpBump, and this week, in honor of Phillie reliever J.C. Romero’s getting reinstated to the roster after completing his 50-game suspension for a first offense related to performance enhancing drugs, we pay tribute to his wife Erin.
Erin met the Puerto Rican-born J.C. when they were both undergradutates and fellow student-athletes at the University of Mobile. Erin, who played softball, still proudly boasts that she hit more homers one year than J.C. did.
A self-proclaimed fitness nut, Erin has taken the blame for convincing J.C. to go on the regimen of dietary supplements that he claims led to the unwitting ingestion of androstenedione that led to his positive drug test, for which J.C. is now suing the manufacturer, alleging inadequate labeling.
The couple has a young daugter, Jaslyn, who was born in 2006.
4 Comments »
The Hottest Baseball Wife

Monday is Hot Baseball Wife Day here at UmpBump, and today, on what would have been her 83rd birthday, we pay tribute to perhaps the hottest baseball wife of them all.
Pictures after the jump…
Comment now »








