I guess you're all too traumatized to send us any funny pictures this morning, so we'll ease you into this transition with some politics. That's Reggie Love, a former scholarship athlete at a major Division I basketball program, getting owned on the court by some skinny old dude. This would be terribly humiliating for Mr. Love ... if it wasn't for this. I guess once you enroll at Duke University, you're pretty much beyond embarrassment.

Youth Versus Age: Obama holds his Own Row 2, Seat 4 [FoxNews]

* * * * *

Funny how the Big Boss Man chose this particular hour to be 35,000 feet in the air and beyond the reach of angry emails. Curious, indeed.

Anyway, the regular commenting mode has not changed, so let's not lose our heads yet, people. First, we'll check on the leftover bagels and if there's no cream cheese, then we'll panic.

Our Kenyan Prince found that the only thing rotten in today's state of Denmark was his entourage of neighborhood fixers. When he flew—with taxpayer funds!—to Copenhagen, the only "wonderful" thing he found was the backbone of an international community that refused to be bullied or bought off.

Did he consider it "lobbying" for the games when he shared a joke with Chavez, or a hug with Ortega, or as he bowed to King Abdullah? For a man so concerned with international opinion, he sure seemed deaf to it in Denmark. Did he think he'd wow the voters with visits from Chicago pals Bill Ayers, Jeremiah Wright, Tony Rezko, and Valerie Jarrett? Is that the "trans-national" multicultural vision of America he wished to share?

If you listen closely, you can still hear the cries of disappointment ringing out from the White House and Millennium Park. Oh, perhaps it was racism that cost us the games! Could we blame Bush, somehow? If only the IOC had more Wise Latinas!

We can but now only imagine how the Chicago games would've played out. New events could've included 100-meter graft. A voter registration forgery relay race, perhaps? The shooting and running portion of the pentathlon wouldn't have to change too much, though we might replace "swimming" with "freestyle gangbanging" (unless you want to be the first one in that frigid "lake").

And those medal ceremonies? Not in Obama's America. There shouldn't be "winners" and "losers," after all. Those finding themselves in the unfortunate (but faultless!) position of "last place" shall be rewarded with gold of their own, from TARP. And if, perchance, the judges reward your dive with a perfect score? You'll be strongly encouraged to "share" some of those points with your neighbors.

At the last quarter, should our basketball Dream Team be down a score or two, well, Obama and Reggie Love just might fly themselves in to join the team and use some of that famed political capitol and rhetorical brilliance to persuade the Iranian team to miss an easy layup. If we're still in a point deficit at the buzzer, we can blame Republicans for misrepresenting the score. (The CBO estimates, after all, that should the game be projected to 2020, it'd end in a tie!)

We remember, of course, the heroic and miraculous Olympics of 1984, when a President named Reagan played host to most of the world (besides the Communist nations, making great games even greater) in Los Angeles (this was the California before Obama and Pelosi, of course, when the state still functioned). And we also remember the games of 1996, which Bubba couldn't protect from a devastating terrorist attack. Lord knows what might've transpired in Chicago after eight years of rolling back our national security apparatus, holding back our intelligence agencies, and reading terrorists their rights. The happily "reformed" and released Guantanamo prisoners could've built the arenas themselves, with money from the third (or fourth!) stimulus!

When Chicago hosted its famed World's Fair in 1893, the closing ceremonies had to be canceled and replaced with Mayor Carter Harrison's memorial service. He'd just been assassinated, you see. By an immigrant, no less. So perhaps, one inclined toward politically incorrect fantasias may find himself darkly imagining, the 2016 Chicago Olympics could've ended on a high note.

Alex Pareene is a syndicated columnist, the editor of The National Interest, and the author of Turnabout: Why America Betrays Israel At Its Own Risk and A Hike With Herbert Hoover, a novel.

There are many, many theories as to what went wrong and from where we sit, they are all equally plausible. Here's are the leading contenders for the big albatross.

Barack Obama: President Hopenchange thought he could he swoop in at the last minute, give a fancy speech and bring the Games back to his "adopted" city. Well, guess what? No one likes adopted kids—or grandstanding prima donnas who want to punch the ball in at the goal line after someone else carried it the first 99 yards. Who do you think you are? Mike Alstott?

George W. Bush: Apparently when you spend the better part of a decade lighting all your bridges on fire, the rest of the globe sort of frowns on that.

Foreigners: Hey, how about a little gratitude for burning all those bridges for you! Eh, they would have just snuck into the country illegally and taken all those construction jobs anyway.

Richard Daley: The poster child for nepotistic cronyism should have been a natural leader in the nepotistic crony-filled backrooms of the International Olympic Committee. "Maybe the 'machine' isn't working," said Sisay Abebe, 51, of Rogers Park.

Rod Blagojevich: How can the world ever take Illinois seriously after they elected that hairdo to govern them?

Roving gangs of murderous thugs: Man, if only those teenagers hadn't hit that kid in the head with a railroad tie and then stomped him to death, all of the city's problems could have magically been erased. Rio has all the luck!

Michael Jordan: Some citizens believed that the professional hoops star who came from North Carolina and ran back there as soon as his career ended could have saved the bid if only he had spoken up. Of if he hadn't insulted Juan Antonio Samaranch in his Hall Of Fame speech!

The Cubs: Some supporters at today's rally carried around signs with a blue "W" on them—the Cubs "victory symbol." "When have those signs ever brought victory?" Andrew Cooper of Chicago asked. "We didn't need that stupid curse on our bid."

Public congratulations, private introspection [Chicago Breaking News]
[Photo of the Chicago fire via the Tribune]

Here are Kennedy's vitals, per this quirky Washington Post profile:

• He's homeless, living on the streets of Georgetown, but he's not a bum, thank you very much.
• Like every other college athlete, he wrote a paper about the BCS for English class and became hooked by the topic, so much so that he went all John Nash and scribbled his proposal all over his apartment's walls.
• His parents cut him out of their cellphone plan, and he now considers himself the Kennedy's "black sheep." He turned to grandma, of course, and she bought him a cell phone. If he doesn't have the money to pay for the bill by month's end, he'll beg for it.
• The Kennedy Proposal: six champions from the BCS conferences and four at-large teams compete in a playoff bracket. The two left standing play for the national championship; the eight losers play in BCS bowls.

It's more complicated than that — it must be, since it's gone through 160 pages in drafts, and Kennedy uses the Georgetown library to remain up-to-date with the latest developments — but 15,000 e-mails later, he's still having trouble getting the ear of college presidents and D.C. politicos. (They're busy bemoaning the state of the BCS in a more public setting.)

Kennedy's thinking about leaving the Beltway soon, but before he bolts, he'd be wise to go straight to the top. Rumor has it, there's a guy in the White House who happens to share similar views on the BCS and knows something about hope and change.

Maybe Shaq can hook him up.

Playoff Advocate Goes Homeless Against The BCS [Washington Post]
Leveling The Playing Field [Sports Illustrated]

Here's what it looked like (give or take an acid trip):

Says Baseball Prospectus' Will Carroll:

It's not good but he said he never played ball as a kid. He looks awkward, but gets a good stride. His elbow's a bit low and his follow through is very short. You know what it looks like? It's like he's trying to throw the ball in, Christian Laettner-style, from the baseline down to someone. Even in throwing a baseball, he's playing basketball.

He's playing to the camera. He kept face forward pretty much the entire time. Maybe that's nerves — even that guy probably gets nervous doing something so unnatural for him — and doesn't get much leg. He was very upright so I'd tell him to get a little bend and push with his knees as he comes through. With a bit more velocity, it would be less of a lollipop curve.

Dr. Mike Marshall, the maverick pitching coach and former rubber-armed reliever, is more forgiving:

He did everything he needed to do to get the baseball there. When he got the arm up and drove it forward, I thought the pitching forearm was pretty close to vertical. If, when you release the ball, your forearm is vertical, that's doing a really good job. Most baseball players — like Dontrelle Willis — their forearms are horizontal. It makes it difficult to throw anything in the strike zone.

Given the circumstances, and whatever protective gear he was wearing and everything else, I think he did just fine. He doesn't use the arm as powerfully as he could. He's very guarded. He was very tight with his shoulders and elbow action. What I'd teach him to do is lengthen out the arm, lengthen out his backswing. I've seen him shoot jump shots. He has an excellent shooting stroke. It's not all that much different throwing a baseball. It takes training, though, and I'd like him to spend as much time as he can on fixing the economy.

And longtime pitching coach Tom House, now at USC, thought Obama did fine, too. He pronounced his performance "serviceable":

His balance and posture were very good. His lift and thrust — in other words, getting his body going — were very good, considering the fact that he had street clothes on and was wearing a coat. His stride and momentum were a little short, but serviceable. His opposite-and-equal was barely adequate; his arms should look the same on both sides of his body going into his foot stride, but he was a little soft with his right arm, and a little bit of what we call a short-armer with his left arm. His actual throwing motion wasn't too bad. It's serviceable. Into the release point, it was very good. His release point was a little short, and because of that, the ball didn't quite get the whole way. If he was a coach throwing batting practice, it would've been great.

I'd tell him to come faster, go forward to the target faster, stride farther, and extend both the throwing arm and the gloveside arm from inside of 90 degrees to outside of 90 degrees. His problem was that he didn't take advantage of his levers. Basically, it was just a step and throw. If I was one-on-one with him, I'd ask him if he was just trying to survive the throw rather than make the throw. If I was certain he was in shape, I'd have him show a bit more number as he comes down the hill. I'd like him to get a bit more violent.

President Obama throws out first pitch of 2009 All Star Game [YouTube]

Playing before the Home Run Derby on Monday was someone named David Cook, who apparently was on "American Idol," which is apparently a TV show, which is apparently popular, which is ... oh, who am I kidding, DAVID ARCHULETA WUZ TOTALLY ROBBED!!!! Most of us were actively disappointed that they didn't make Cook stay out there on stage over second base during the Derby, and just, you know, duck.

If you read yesterday's column about the Derby, you won't be surprised that I only took one picture before the coma onset. (And it was of David Cook!) Off to the parade, which exists mostly to remind us that Chevrolet still makes cars. This is what today's Camaro looks like. I hate this Camaro. That's not a Camaro. This is a Camaro. That thing looks like a Transformer.

When I did that Costas Redux thing a year ago, I sat next to Bob Gibson for the entire show. The best part was when, about 10 minutes before the show, Gibson said he needed to use the bathroom. An usher, prepping for the show's start, told him he needed to wait, and Gibson just glared at him before walking right past. (He's lucky Bob didn't piss on his shoes.) Bob Gibson is awesome, and scares the crap out of me.

Definite downside to spending your Hall of Fame career in St. Louis: Having to wear suits like this, in perpetuity. At least Ozzie put forth the effort. Hey, Sutter: You're meeting the President and Stan Musial later tonight. Consider a tie, or at least lose the hat.

I don't know why, but I kind of assumed baseball managers just wore those uniforms all the time, on the street, at church, in the shower. By the way, Charlie Manuel's wife longtime companion was modeling the Futures Jerseys the Rockies will debut next season.

It is not the least bit surprising that Tony La Russa and Sully would ride around in the parade together. They're both famously amazing drivers.

You know, I have to confess, ever since Major League Baseball cracked down on performance enhancing drugs, the players do look a lot different.

I'm not sure any human has ever received 48 consecutive hours of standing ovations before, but Albert Pujols must have come close this week. The mayor actually sacrificed Nelly in his honor. It was a whole big ceremony.

You know you're in St. Louis when half the parade attendees were screaming for Tim Lincecum to cut his damned hippie hair. At least he didn't pass out this year.

No one enjoyed himself more than Raul Ibanez, who has been waiting a long, long time to make it to an All-Star Game. He started filming me because I was taking his picture. All that steroid use is paying off, Raul! Yeah! I said it! I'm online! I CAN'T BE STOPPED. It's just what we do here!

My Mom: "Is that his trophy wife?" My Dad: "They're all trophy wives, Sally."

Ryan Franklin's family seemed nice, but I'm not sure I could take my father seriously if he had that on his chin. (Says the guy who once snapped a picture of his father doing this.

I have no doubt that David Wright and his friends liberally quote "Entourage" to each other.

As always, Derek Jeter rode in the parade with his parents. It's pretty hard to make fun of this when you're sitting on your dad's shoulders to get a better picture of Derek Jeter in the parade with his parents.

Right after this picture was taken, Josh Hamilton's wife slapped him silly for staring at that "harlot" in the Cardinals hat. Gotta keep your men in line, ladies.

Jonathan Papelbon = Spencer Pratt. It seems odd that this isn't pointed out more often.

In New York last year, it seemed like Yankees fans made up about, oh, 35 percent of all fans. In St. Louis, it was about 85 percent, and I'm probably being conservative. It's almost like more people want to visit New York in July than St. Louis. Fools!

Meet the lone Obama protester outside Busch Stadium. He's either a terrible speller or just really trying to drum up publicity for the Obama family dog.

The old mad Hungarian Al Hrabosky has a bar — a "saloon," actually — by the stadium that might be the creepiest, shadiest sports bar I've ever been to. The tube top waitresses were alternately 14 and 53, and the whole floor of the bar was covered peanut shells floating in an inch of water. Hrabosky didn't seem to mind: He walked out to the "patio" area and just yelled, "Who wants some autographs?" Retired athletes are so depressing.

The President was coming, but security was shockingly easy: It's more onerous to gain entry to any skyscraper office building in New York than it was to make it in the game. No frisking, no wanding. I believe the guy who passed me through the gate was chewing tobacco.

Before the game, Harold Reynolds was running around the outfield with a microphone in one hand and a glove in the other. There is no one in America who loves their job more than Harold Reynolds. Good for him.

The Cardinals spared no expense in trying to find Albert Pujols' missing car keys.

The first official event of the 2009 All-Star Game festivities involved sweeping massive piles of horseshit off the warning track. Clydesdales produce a rather epic amount of manure. Replace your divots!

I can't figure out if this is offensive or awesome. Probably both.

"Strength is irrelevant. Resistance is futile. We wish to improve ourselves. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt to service ours."

This was my attempt to take a picture of the stealth bomber flying overhead. I am an awesome photographer.

Stan Musial is just freaking great. Plus, he was on "What's My Line?' once. As was Jackie Robinson, once.

You might not have noticed this on television, but Obama ran toward that cameraman and just beat the piss out of him. America!

For the record, I heard little-to-no boos for Obama at Busch, so it was surprising to receive a bunch of text messages from people watching at home that suggested otherwise. One thing I can confirm: A massive roar of approval when President Dubya showed up on the scoreboard. Makes sense. That guy can throw a first pitch, that's for sure.

Forgive me being five years old for a moment, but it was pretty damned cool seeing Albert Pujols hold Ichiro Suzuki close to first while Derek Jeter was at the plate.

And then Mariano Rivera shut the National League down ... and it was over, stunningly fast. Then everyone went home and, in two years, no one will remember the All-Star Game was ever here in the first place. Go St. Louis! Go baseball! Bo Obama!

Also: Obama supposedly will be in the Fox booth at some point between the third and fifth innings. You know what this means, don't you? What it means is this: Tonight, an American president becomes Joe Buck and Tim McCarver's lucky Pierre. I can't wait.

Barry Petchesky will be around tonight to chronicle Bud Selig's neat little scrimmage. Thanks for your continued support of Deadspin. Keats and Yeats are on your side.

PHOTO: El Duk'

That's not a misquote or some gotcha journalism, either. Sixty-five campers, all African-American or Hispanic, arrived at the Valley Swim Club in lovely Huntingdon Valley, where they were scheduled to make weekly trips for the summer. Some of the campers claim they were asked what they were doing at the club, but they still stayed for an hour and afterward, the club's president was "apologetic" for his members' whispers. Just a few days later, though, the campers' membership check was "refunded," which meant they were no longer welcome. Then came a statement from the club — not an out-of-context sound bite, mind you, but a poorly-worded, written defense:

"There was concern that a lot of kids would change the complexion … and the atmosphere of the club," John Duesler, President of The Valley Swim Club said in a statement.

To be fair, changing the grounds' atmosphere can mean a lot of things. For a small club, the blitz of 65 children might have been overwhelming. Or, the kids were minorities and everyone freaked out.

Naturally, the Daily Kos is all over the story, piecing together relevant excerpts from all of Philadelphia newspapers (they still exist!) and radio stations. But why read digital ink when you can read the local blog The New York Times linked to this morning?

The Valley Swim Club is a nice Sunday morning jog from my house, and the type of people who make up the membership are the ones who joined to get away from all the Negroes who might pollute the city pools. So this story is not surprising. What's surprising is how surprised everyone seems to be that this actually happened. Obviously they don't read black blogs. And they certainly don't keep up with the racism chasers. If they did, they would realize that we can't keep up. Racism is all over the place, and chasing it is becoming just too damn hard.

Holla at the folks at The Valley Swim Club and let them know that in the age of Obama even little Negroes should be able to swim in peace.

Word?

Montco swim club accused of racial discrimination [Philly Inquirer]
Pool Boots Kids Who Might "Change Complexion" [NBC Philadelphia]
Valley Swim Club: Day Two [Daily Kos]
I thought black folks couldn't swim [The Field Negro]

Turns out, however, that since he's assumed the Oval Office, there hasn't been as much time to hoop it up. He swished some shots with the UConn women's team and plays when he can, but there is also a world to save.

He might get a few more runs in now that he's converting the outdoor tennis court into a basketball court, he told Brian Williams on Inside the Obama White House last night.

"We have commissioned new lines to be painted alongside the tennis court lines, and we're going to have some removable baskets so we're going to have an outdoor court on the tennis court. And I am confident I might be able to get in at least a weekly game. I've played a couple of times so far since I've been in office, and for an old guy, I'm hanging in there."

This — this! — is the worst type of government corruption, the kind that I thought had been hoped and changed out in November. Because even though the Power ordered the bobbleheads from an "unknown country," they were held up in U.S. Customs and Border Protection for nine days. Do you know how much President Obama did in nine days? A lot! And it's unjust not to allow his bobbleheads to do the same. This is America, after all.

The Power, consequently, had no idea what to do, so they called the White House. No dice. And just before shit got real weird, the team learned yesterday that the dolls had been released from detention, even if they likely won't make it for tonight's scheduled giveaway to underscore the night's theme of "fitness and a healthy lifestyle." To compensate, the first 1,000 fans instead will get "golden tickets" — they're actually called that — and, in addition to a detained bottlehead that may or may not have been tortured in captivity, will receive snozberries, everlasting gobstoppers and an Oompa-Loompa.

Obama bobblehead dolls released from captivity — no one harmed [The Vote Blog]
Obama Bobbleheads Red Flagged At Customs [Steady Burn]

First, baseball. Obama said:

One case in particular involved a matter of enormous concern to many Americans, including me: the baseball strike of 1994-1995. (Laughter.) In a decision that reportedly took her just 15 minutes to announce, a swiftness much appreciated by baseball fans everywhere — (laughter) — she issued an injunction that helped end the strike.

Yes, everyone had a good chuckle over this, because it's just sports after all. But it was Sotomayor herself who, as a federal district judge in 1995, pithily and forcefully declared that something larger was at stake in the baseball strike, a fact ignored by the sort of facile people who dismissed the work stoppage as a pointless dispute between athletic millionaires and short billionaires. "This strike," she said, in the same courtroom where Curt Flood lost his bid for free agency in 1970, "has placed the entire concept of collective bargaining on trial."

Ruling from the bench, she directed owners to restore free agency and salary arbitration while bargaining continued and in doing so effectively ended the strike. It was a headslappingly obvious decision; Sotomayor famously needed only 15 minutes for deliberation. I asked former players union head Marvin Miller about the ruling. "It was an open-and-shut case," he said this morning. "You can't unilaterally change what has been negotiated. I'm not trying to minimize what she did. An awful lot of judges fold even in obvious cases. What she did was simply to apply the law as the NLRB [National Labor Relations Board] and the courts had already determined. But when a judge straightens it out in a sentence or two, that's marvelous."

Her decision in Maurice Clarett v. National Football League is more problematic. U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin had struck down the NFL's age restriction, thus making Clarett eligible for the draft. Sotomayor was a member of a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit that overturned Scheindlin's ruling. (Note to Peter King: The question before the panel was not, by any means, whether the rule was "unreasonable or unfair." This is not what judges do. Most 10-year-olds understand that.)

In the panel's ruling, Sotomayor held that the age rule, which requires a player to be three football seasons removed from high school, fell under a labor exemption to anti-trust laws — bear with me here — and in effect had been collectively bargained by the NFL players union (even though the rule appears nowhere in the collective bargaining agreement). It's a tricky opinion that simultaneously restricts a worker's right to earn and buttresses a creaky, paternalistic rule dating back to the days of Red Grange, but, more progressively, treats the act of collective bargaining — no matter how ineptly one side may be bargaining — as sacrosanct.

It's also an infuriating opinion, one that, thanks in large part to the NFLPA's much-documented incompetence, basically countenances the collusion at the heart of our sports leagues' age requirements. In recent weeks, conservatives have gone bark-at-the-moon loony over Obama's stated desire for a Supreme Court justice who rules with "empathy." The Clarett decision, at least, was anything but empathic — it was a cold-eyed and literal-minded ruling from a judge who is nevertheless destined to spend the next hundred news cycles being branded a fire-breathing anarcho-syndicalist by the idiot right.

Obama Picks Sotomayor, Citing Intellect [New York Times]

About 150 five-year olds from Virginia had scheduled the tour months ago and they had all worked many long hours sewing wallets to earn the $20 needed for a seat on the chartered bus. They even managed to pass the security screening for visitors, although I'm sure at least a few of them were criminals. Yet, when the bus got stuck in traffic and arrived at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. just 10 minutes late, the President himself ordered that they be thrown off the premises, then he went and had brandy and cigars with a bunch of football players. Then he kicked a puppy just to hear it whimper.

Paty Stine said the White House staff should have made an exception. She feels the kindergarteners were snubbed for the Steelers.

"Here we have President Obama and his administration saying here we are for the common, middle class people, and here he is not letting 150 5- and 6-year-olds into the White House because he's throwing a lunch for a bunch of grown millionaires," Stine said.

According to the White House, the group was actually an hour late and they held the gates open 15 minutes later than they said they would and the group still didn't make it in time. Whatever. It's clear that Barack Obama loves Troy Polamalu more than he loves your kid. Now they know how Cardinal fans feel.

Sobbing Kindergarteners Snubbed for Steelers? [NBC Washington]

Angry mobs are gathering torches to burn down the island of Manhattan as we speak, but Barack Obama obviously does not care about that. How else to explain why he would take 30 minutes out of his world-saving schedule to acknowledge Andy Katz, or worse, take 30 seconds out of his day to talk to Jay Leno. If that didn't make it clear enough that he doesn't give a rat's ass about your problems, he went ahead and made a crack about how retarded people can't bowl. Oh, that's rich.

See, we like our leaders clueless and out of touch. He really should make no attempt to connect with the people he leads and he should certainly stay the hell away from any bowling alleys. Otherwise, he might get a 16-pounder to the grill from the common people he so obviously disdains.

Because that's how real, non-mentally handicapped people do bowling. They get into brawls over lane etiquette and knock each other's teeth out. Please just go back to War-shington and do your very serious job, so the rest of us can return to bashing each other's heads in with bowling balls.

Bowling Brawl Ends With Bowling Ball To The Face [Sports Rubbish]
Special O'Fiction [Metroville]
Q: What do Women Hoopsters and Special Olympians Have in Common? [Hugging Harold Reynolds]
Obama's 'Special Olympics' Leno Gaffe [Gawker]