First of all, dear UmpBump readers, an apology is in order. We had a very heated exchange today with our hosting provider due to their decision to pull down the site.

As a result, we had to strip most of our sidebar links and other things (ie, like having two posts on the home page). Like my mom says, you gotta look at the positives, so we’ll be redesigning the site to increase efficiency and avoid database resource “over-use” (btw, any WordPress theme designers out there that want to contribute, let us know).

And now, as an apology for the downtime I present to you all this special video I came across today, featuring the beautiful HBW alumna Juliana Ramirez and a new HBW inductee, Leslie Holliday, wife of All-Star Slugger Matt Holliday, appearing in a beauty-at-the-ballpark special on the Today Show.

Très, très belles.

Yogi Berra lip balm, though? Talk about odd…

How can you tell spring is in the air? Forget Punxsutawney Phil. I know the sap is rising when Manny starts being Manny again.

Training in Tempe, Arizona this offseason, Manny Ramirez is conveniently located for this weekend’s Super Bowl in Glendale. But he’s not going to just take the day off, no sir. According to WZLX in Boston, his agent is calling around town to the various Patriots bars in the area, asking them if they’d like to have the 2004 World Series MVP drop by during the game.

For $10,000.*

Now, you may be asking yourself, why would a man who makes twenty million dollars a year scrounge around under the seat cushions for that kind of chump change? Why would Manny Ramirez, who, we’ve been told, is shy, want to spend Super Bowl Sunday with a bunch of drunk Pats fans when he could spend it with his Hot Baseball Wife and Cute Baseball Babies? And if he needed ten grand, why wouldn’t he just sell some more stuff on eBay? But these are foolish questions, baseball fans. As we should know by now, Manny is as Manny does.

I just hope that wherever he watches the Super Bowl, he doesn’t see his shadow. I’m not ready for six more weeks of winter.

* Note of comparison: Maybe Manny should ask for more money. After all, Paris Hilton, Mariah Carey, and Britney Spears command appearance fees well into the six figures. Even Kim Kardashian gets $75k for party appearances, and I still don’t know why she’s famous.

Behold, Juliana Ramirez (right):

(That’s HBW alumna Michelle Damon on the left.)

The Boston Globe tells how Manny met the future Mrs. Ramirez, who was a waitress at the time:

Ramirez met his wife, Juliana, while he was working out at Bally’s Gym in Boston. “I came up to her and started talking to her,” he says. The future Mrs. Ramirez didn’t know she was talking to one of baseball’s premier sluggers. Manny liked that.

“She’s from Brazil,” he says. “They don’t know nothing about baseball.”

She’s sure been a quick study, judging from her somewhat obsessive MySpace page. (Also bizarre: this Manny MySpace page, complete with a blog entry advising Theo? Yeah, I guess it’s legit….?)

Manny’s missus also rocks that whole gorgeous-glowing-Madonna-and-child maternal look:

Extra points for the ADORABLE mini-Manny!