In 2008, we inducted Goose Gossage into the UmpBump version of the Hall of Fame, and last year, we inducted Rickey Henderson and Tim Raines. Although Raines is not yet in the real Hall, since he’s already in our Hall we didn’t include him in the voting this year, although judging from the number of UmpBump voters who put him on their ballot anyway as a sign of solidarity, we gladly would have voted him in again this year.

Voters this year included Umpbumpers Sarah, Alejandro, Zvee, Paul, Coley, and Nick, and distinguished guest voters Melissa, a longtime UmpBump reader, and Tyler Hissey, editor of the blog “Around the Majors.”

Here are this year’s results, in order of total number of votes received:

Roberto Alomar – 7
Barry Larkin – 6
Bert Blyleven – 5
Ron Santo – 5
Shoeless Joe Jackson – 4
Pete Rose – 4
Alan Trammell – 4
Andre Dawson – 3
Edgar Martinez – 3
Mark McGwire – 3
Buck O’Neill – 3
Fred McGriff – 2
Jack Morris – 2
Dick Allen – 1
Harold Baines – 1
Albert Belle – 1
Dwight Evans – 1
Gil Hodges – 1
Minnie Miñoso – 1
Dale Murphy – 1
Ted Simmons – 1
Lou Whitaker – 1
Maury Wills – 1

With 8 voters, this years UmpBump Hall of Fame enshrinees are Roberto Alomar with 87.5% of the vote, and Barry Larkin, just edging in with exactly 75% of the vote.

Edgar Martinez, who many consider a sure bet for eventual enshrinement, only got 3 votes from on his first year of eligibility, perhaps a sign of the mild distaste for the DH that many of us seem to share.

Bert Blyleven and Ron Santo just missed again, but held steady at the 5 votes they received last year. Andre Dawson, however, plummeted from 5 votes last year to 3 votes this year, which may not bode well for his future chances at gaining entry to the UmpBump Hall.

Meanwhile, Joe Jackson, Pete Rose, Alan Trammell, Mark McGwire, and Buck O’Neill all gained ground from last year.

See you next year!

UmpBump Hall of Fame Inductees by Year

2010 – Roberto Alomar, Barry Larkin
2009 – Rickey Henderson, Tim Raines
2008 – Goose Gossage

Congrats to Suz and Coley Ward!

And if you know of any blogs that are more fun than checking sunrisesunset.com, waiting for the days to get longer, leave ‘em in the comments.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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!