If you haven’t noticed by now, we have a new button on our site. It’s on the right side of the page, between the “banter” and recent posts. Click it and add Umpbump’s new blidget to your blog or Facebook page!

What’s a blidget, you ask? It’s a widget for blogs! Clever, eh?

For the tech-deficient, this blidget is just one more way to keep track of what Umpbump is up to. It’s a little device that you can add to your site that keeps an updated list of all of our most recent posts.

What are you waiting for? Add the Umpbump blidget today!

And while you’re at it, don’t forget to become a fan of Umpbump on Facebook, or befriend us on Myspace.

For those of you familiar with twitter, you know of its addictive properties, and for those of you who don’t know what the hell it is, imagine being able to tell the world that you’re about to sit on the can and… ok, bad example.

The best thing I can compare it to is to Facebook’s “status” option, or AIM’s and gchat’s “away” message option. The difference being that instead of using a chat client or a social networking site, you’re actually “publishing” your status to a network dedicated solely to that end. Oh, and it’s convenient, you can send updates to your status from your mobile phone or IM service.

The point is not only to share your “status” with friends and other people, but to “follow” others as they update their accounts. And did I mention it’s convenient? If you want, you can simply subscribe to the RSS feed, or actually get a text message on your cell every time there’s an update. Fun, eh? Hey, I didn’t invent the Internet, so don’t ask me to explain.

Furthermore, before you go all judgmental on me, know this: Twitter can actually be a helpful tool. A number of mainstream media sites (NYTimes, NPR, CNN) are using it to push “breaking news” tidbits or links to interesting news stories and articles to the network.

Anyhoo, as you probably guessed by now, we created a profile for UmpBump on twitter, and every time we post a new blog entry, we’ll send out alerts to those of you following us there (it’s all thanks to Mr. Alex King and his twitter tools plugin for Wordpress - if you self publish on WP, his plugins are essential, check them out).

So that’s that, we’re following a number of people who came up in the search results when we entered “baseball” but hit us up on twitter if you’re using the thing so we can follow you as well. Let us know what you think what other things we can use it for in the comments.

Just a reminder that Umpbump will be blogging over at MLB Trade Rumors this and every Saturday afternoon, from 2-6 p.m. EST.

Today, we’re doing double duty. Sarah took this morning’s shift. Now it’s Alejandro’s turn.

Swing by MLBTR and leave a comment!

The traditional second anniversary gift is cotton. So it would be appropriate for Umpbump to offer free t-shirts to all of our loyal readers. Or at least socks.

But instead, we’ve put together a list of all of our highlights from the last 12 months. These are posts that garnered both critical acclaim and record breaking traffic (record breaking for us, anyway).

It’s not as much fun as socks, but it’s cheaper.

Without further ado, the Umpbump Year in Review:

1. Capitalizing on the runaway freight train that was Mitt Romney, Umpbump named its All-Mormon team.
2. Umpbump interviewed the composer of baseball opera “The Summer King,” Daniel Sonenberg. We also sat down with Philadelphia Daily News baseball writer and former Baseball Writers of America President Paul Hagen. And don’t forget our tete-a-tete with Deadspin’s Will Leitch.
3. We brought you Hot Baseball Wives, including burgeoning popstar Alejandra Tejada.
4. We proved the legend of the Elusive Jamie Kotsay! And then found more never-before-seen pics.
5. We told you what players we’d like to take out of the Hall of Fame.
6. For the second consecutive season we graded all the teams on their Hot Offseason Action.
7. We kept you up to date on the Unfortunate Facial Hair of Reed Johnson, Pedro Feliz, and especially Kevin Youkilis.
8. We celebrated the first annual Douchie Awards, honoring the biggest douchebags in baseball.
9. We ventured east — far east — and told you about Trey Hillman’s restaurant in Japan and about the contact hitting revolution being led by Andy Sheets.
10. We launched the Umpbump Fantasy League. The draft is tomorrow!

As always, we’d like to thank the other bloggers out there who link to our posts (especially Deadspin, Rob Neyer, The Big Lead, Sports by Brooks and Baseball Think Factory) and all the readers who subscribe to our feed.

Just a reminder, in addition to this site, you can read our stuff on MLB Trade Rumors on Saturday afternoons, 1:00-5:00pm Central Time.
Happy Birthday to us! Now where’s the cake?

We had great response to the Umpbump fantasy league, thanks in no small part to our friend Tim over at Roto Authority.

Without further ado, here are this season’s competitors.

1. Alejandro Leal is a scholar of HTML code, but all too often his fantasy teams end up gettin’ schooled. But this year will be different.
2. Sarah Green is a Jane Austen scholar. It’s her first fantasy league. And she’s blonde. This could be fun.
3. Coley Ward lives in Tucson, Ariz., where he enjoys going to spring training games and brewing his own beer. His fantasy record is spotty, but his glass is half-full!
4. Paul Moro joined Umpbump last year. He does a great impression of Short Round from “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.”
5. Caitlin Grace was making fantasy transactions in the waning moments leading up to her wedding. For better or worse, in sickness and in health, she’s on board.
6. Larry P. didn’t invent fantasy baseball, but he was an early pioneer.
7. Ania grew up in the Philly area but roots for the Red Sox. Lame. Wicked awesome!
8. Fatguy had us at, “what kind of fantasy league can it be without FATGUY!” That’s sound logic.
9. Bryan Inman is a Pirates fan, an aspiring journalist and an Umpbump reader. Talk about a glutton for punishment.
10. Evan Hochschild is a 22-year old law student. Always good to have a lawyer on board.
11. Kirk Miller, a 47 year old Northern Californian, has been doing fantasy sports for over a decade. And he doesn’t like Dusty Baker, which is a sign of intelligence.
12. Doug makes the cut because he coaches little league and Sarah thinks that’s adorable.

Congratulations to all those selected to compete. The draft will be held on Wednesday, March 19, at 8 p.m. EST.

We’ll write periodic posts updating you on the league standings and highlighting some of the more impressive transactions, like when Sarah trades Placido Palanco (he of the oddly shaped head) for Gabe Kapler and his “intangibles” (read: butt dimples). Or when Coley makes the playoffs, only to choke, just like his beloved Phillies.

Ed note: This post has been edited by Sarah.

Starting today, Umpbump will be blogging over at MLB Trade Rumors.

Tim Dierkes, who runs MLBTR (and Roto Authority) has asked us to write for his site every Saturday from 2-7 p.m.

This is the big time, people. Umpbump is leaving the nest. It’s a big, cold world out there. But I think we’ll do just fine.

I’m going to take the first shift. Next week, it’s Paul’s turn. Stop by the site and leave a comment.

2008 will go down in history as the year America elected its first African-American or woman president, the year the Coen Brothers finally won their “Best Picture” Oscar, and the year Umpbump finally took the plunge into fantasy baseball.
The Umpbump fantasy league will include 12 teams. It will be a head to head league. It’s also a Yahoo Premium league, which means lots of bells and whistles including prizes for the winning team. Each of the Umpbump writers (except Nick) — Paul, Sarah, Alejandro and I — will have teams. That leaves seven open spots. Entry is free.

The draft will be held on Wednesday, March 19 at 8 p.m. EST.

If you’re interested in participating in the Umpbump league, leave your name and qualifications in the comments section. We’ll pick the eight most worthy candidates.

Let the games begin!

Update: We’re all done!!

Let us know if you find any bugs (or any other weirdness) on the site at get [at] umpbump [dot] com

***

To a new hosting provider that is.

We’re in the process of moving our files and database to a better and faster host; as far as we’ve been informed by the support team at our new home, the process will be seamless. However, we’d like to let you guys know in case a hiccup should present itself.

If anything, the domain might not respond for a few minutes while the DNS records get updated, but all should be back to normal by tomorrow.

Thanks!

Umpbump turns one year old today and to celebrate we’re counting down our greatest hits. It’s been a wild year full of steroid rumors, unfortunate facial hair, hot baseball wives, Japanese imports, car crash cover-ups and way, way too many pink hats.

We’ve had a great time blogging about it all. And we’re looking forward to another great year. But for now, here it is, your “Year in Umpbump”:

• First we learned Carl Pavano had a girlfriend, and she was a hottie. Then we discovered what his girl was really after — Derek Jeter.
• We kept you current on all the “Hot Offseason Action”.
• Sarah let you know exactly what she thought about pink hats.
• Then she came up with a reason to look at photos of Gabe Kapler and his babies.
• Something furry started growing on Jason Giambi’s upper lip.
• Alejandro and Nick gave you the dirt on Mrs. “Rockets” Matsuzaka.
• Nick chased the myth of the gyroball.
• Keith Foulke found religion.
• We took you back in time, to when John Rocker was a huge (monstrous) success.
• Alejandro told you exactly what he thought of MLB’s deal with DirecTV, and the New York Times noticed!

As you all can see, we also redesigned the blog from the ground up. Well, actually, we took a Wordpress theme (Earthling2) and modified it to fit our needs (and wants). Mainly, we wanted two right columns instead of one. We think it leads itself to better organizing of the links and such.

We also kept a contrasting color to that of the main column so as to not cause strain on the eyes.

A big group hug and a toast to all of those who made Umpbump a stunning success in its first year.

Cheers!