Monday is Hot Baseball Wife Day here at UmpBump, and this week’s honoree is Misaki Iwamura, the wife of Rays second baseman Akinori Iwamura.

Born in a small fishing village near the town of Shimonoseki in western Japan, Misaki was working as an “Office Lady” when Akinori saw her while out at an event hosted by mutal friends.

“It was love at first sight,” confides Akinori, who then asked his friends to invite her out again so he could ask her out on a date.

Akinori did his best to conceal that he was a famous baseball player, and Misaki did not find out who he was until she mentioned to her baseball-loving brothers that she had been asked out by some guy named “Akinori Iwamura.” They told her she should accept right away, but she played hard to get, making Akinori ask her out numerous times before she finally said yes.

The couple was married in 2005, and had a son, Taiki, in 2007.  They live in St. Petersburg, Florida.

More pictures after the jump…

Read the rest of this entry »

Monday is Hot Baseball Wives Day here at UmpBump, and today we kick it old school with the smokin’ hot wives of the 1927 Brooklyn Dodgers:

Say hello to (L to R) Mrs. Harvey Hendrick, Mrs. Corgan, Mrs. Dazzie Vance, Mrs. Walter Henline, Mrs. Mickey O’Neil, Mrs. Wilbert Robinson, Mrs. Irish Meusel, and Mrs. Chamberlain!

Monday is hot baseball wives day here on UmpBump, and this weeks honoree is Emiko Taguchi, née Kagawa, the wife Japanese outfielder So Taguchi.

So Taguchi is an outfielder who has gone to the World Series three times – with the Cardinals in 2004 and 2006, and with the Phillies last season.

So and Emiko met when Emiko was a sports announcer for Japanese TV station TBS and he was an outfielder for the Orix Blue Wave. The couple was married in 2000, and they have one son, Kan Taguchi, born in 2003.

In addition to her former career as a TV announcer, Emiko is the author of three books in Japanese, including one on baseball in America. She is fluent in English, and has been helping So to learn the language since they moved to the US. She also converted So to Christianity in 2002, with the help of one of So’s teammates on the AAA Memphis Redbirds.

So and Emiko make a pretty cute couple, because neither of them ever seems to stop smiling, and we have yet to find a picture of them where they aren’t.

(more pictures after the jump)

Read the rest of this entry »

Monday is Hot Baseball Wife Day here at UmpBump.com, and after searching deep in the inner depths of the internets to find pictures of the previously unknown Ashlee Koronka last week, we decided to pick some low-hanging fruit this week and go with Oriole second baseman Brian Roberts’ blushing new bride (or maybe not so blushing, judging by these pictures) Diana, best known under her maiden name Diana Chiafair (pronounced sha-FAIR).

It was almost too easy, really. Pictures and video of Diana are literally all over the web, and only even more so since the couple wed back in early January of this year.

Before marrying Roberts, Diana was a swimsuit model and minor internet celebrity, best known for winning the title of “Miss FHM” in 2006, and before becoming a swimsuit model she had been a pharmaceutical rep.

There is video here, as well as more pictures after the jump…

Read the rest of this entry »

Monday is hot baseball wife day here at UmpBump, and this week UmpBump once again used its mad searching skills to once again brings to light an HBW honoree never before heralded on the internets.

Ashlee Koronka is the wife of pitcher John Koronka, who formerly was a starting pitcher for the Chicago Cubs and Texas Rangers (2005-07) and is currently pitching as a reliver for the Marlins’ triple-A affiliate New Orleans Zephyrs after just missing the cut to make the big club in the last week of spring training.

The two went to high school together at Southlake High School in Groveland, Florida. Whereas John was selected in the 12th round of the 1998 amateur draft by the Cinncinnati Reds and went on to start his baseball career, Ashlee went on to get a degree in Business Marketing from Florida State.

The couple has a child, Cannon Koronka, born in 2008.

(more pictures after the jump)

Read the rest of this entry »

A.J. Burnett’s wife Karen has long been legendarily hot, but for many years there were no known pictures of her on the internets.  Even so, little remains known about her. We do know that she lives year-round in her hometown of Baltimore with the couple’s two sons Ashton and AJ Jr., and that she hates to fly.  So much so that it was said to affect AJ’s possible destinations as a free agent this past offseason.  In AJ’s contract with the Blue Jays, Karen was guaranteed 8 roundtrip limo rides between Baltimore and Toronto per season, and given that that is about a 9 hour trip each way, she must *really* hate to fly.  There are also rumors that she is a former stripper, which is not *too* hard to believe.

More pictures after the jump. The first two pictures were found first by others, but as always we here at UmpBump managed to dig up a couple of never-before-seen pictures!

Read the rest of this entry »

Yu Darvish, the ace of the Japanese WBC team and star hurler for the Nippon Ham Fighters, is just about the biggest Japanese baseball star not currently playing in the Major Leagues. Tall, dark, and handsome, the half-Iranian, half-Japanese righty haunts the dreams of young women across Japan, so it surprised no one when he married one of the prettiest Japanese actresses around, 22-year-old idol Saeko.  The two were married in 2007 and had a son in the spring of 2008

More pictures after the jump…

Read the rest of this entry »

Monday is hot baseball wife day here at UmpBump, and today’s honoree is Heidi Hamels, née Strobel, a physical education teacher from Missouri who rocketed to fame as a contestant on season six of TV’s Survivor (”Amazon”) when, after losing 20 pounds as part of an “endurance challenge,” she and another female contestant agreed to strip naked in exchange for peanut butter and oreos.

The incident later led to Heidi posing in Playboy magazine, and ultimately she caught the eye of Philadelphia Phillies ace Cole Hamels, whom she married in 2007. And really, as hot as posing in Playboy may be, what could be hotter than snagging World Series MVP and all-around stud Cole Hamels?

More pictures after the jump…

Read the rest of this entry »