Just kidding, it's a baby elephant.

"Yet while population geneticists and sociologists have been battling over the meaning of times in the 100-meter dash, Asians have been making their own argument about where they fit into the world of sports. And they've been doing it through pure, old-fashioned physical superiority. The fastest man in Major League…

Yo, panda, real talk for a second: I cannot get enough of you posing with basketball players wearing the Official China Panda Blue Smock. It's like, they're so big and goofy and you're so little and fuzzy and greyscale, and they've always got that wonderful little smock to avoid rubbing their sweaty human oils on you,…

How long was Yao Ming going to last? That was the question about the seven-foot-six center long before he broke his foot for the first time in the NBA. When Yao joined the league nine summers ago, picked first overall in the 2002 draft by the Houston Rockets, he was the man who would bring the entire Chinese market…

In this touching Taiwanese animation tribute, Yao Ming has an 80-inch vertical. He rides rockets. He rides sharks. He retires. It's all very poignant, especially the bit in the beginning where his mother gives birth to a basketball out of which hatches a baby Yao. Does that count against the one-child policy?

Remember how when Yao Ming retired after nine years in Houston, they weren't allowed to call him or release a comment? One of the side effects of the lockout is that players can't have any contact with their teams, so we were forced to imagine Yao sitting at home, staring at the phone, not understanding why the Rockets …

Your morning roundup for July 9, the day Detroit teaches us to respect the crackheads who walk among us.

Yahoo! reports that Yao Ming is retiring after nine seasons with the Houston Rockets. Shaq, as he tends to do, confirmed the report on Twitter and then suggested that they go on vacation together. [Yahoo!, @Shaq]

Hardworking team-player, all-around swell guy, and chronic injury victim Yao Ming has been campaigning for a while against the indefensible Chinese tradition of exterminating the world's sharks by finning the creatures and throwing them back into the ocean to die slowly so nouveau riche assholes can slurp broth at a …

Jesus. What is this? There's Yao in a leg brace, perhaps never to emerge. There's a barren set with a dirty floor. A sinister-looking man dressed in black sits beside Yao in a high chair. Is this a shoot for an evil podiatry ad? Yao has yet to explain himself. But Nan from China is thrilled: