MICHAEL PHELPS WILL NOW OWN THE WATER YOU SWIM IN

As if dominating and capturing the eyes and hearts of billions of humans across the world wasn't enough with his brilliant 8 gold medal performance in Beijing, Olympic swimmer and Baltimore born and bred Michael Phelps is now ready to own the actual pools kids will be training in order to emulate himself according to the Baltimore Sun...

"My goal is to change the sport of swimming," Phelps told NBC's Nightly News anchor Brian Williams in an interview broadcast last night. "Bob and I are starting up a new business back in Baltimore with the pool that we just bought, so we're going to make some adjustments and see what we can do to take that sport to the next level."

Honestly right now Phelps could sell me anything after his unbelievably clutch performances of the past week and if he wants to take the sport of swimming to the next level I think he will. But let's be completely honest here and state that like Tiger Woods is to golf himself the sport of swimming will never see another Michael Phelps. Tiger sitting out of tournaments while recovering from knee surgery is killing the ratings of golf because people don't want to watch boring pasty white prep yuppies hit the links while scratching their ass and contemplating which Florida property they are going to buy next. They want to see Tiger and the only reason for me and billions of others give a damn about swimming is to see Phelps dominate. He is the face of the sport.

Phelps should instead look to purchase the Baltimore Orioles. I know it sounds like an outlandish idea but the kid is about to make 100's of millions in endorsements wants he gets back to the States. He has now become as much if not perhaps more of a face of a Maryland sports athlete to the young generation as Cal Ripken. By young generation I mean the under 20 crowd. If him and Ripken could pool together enough money with investors they could purchase the Orioles from Peter Angelos. Angelos seems to be on his final leg as owner and his mark as one has not been well received within the state of Maryland. People hate him including myself at times. Angelos isn't a bad man deep down. In fact he gives a lot back to the community in terms of donations. He cares and wants the Orioles to be a winning franchise and since he hired Andy MacPhail to make all the baseball decisions it seems the O's are in the process of getting things turned around with some good young talent waiting in the minors. But if he wants to leave an enduring legacy he needs to sell the franchise to a group of native Marylanders and a combo of Ripken and Phelps would be impossible to beat.

Of course this is all hypothetical as who knows if Phelps would really be interested in owning the Orioles. Right now he is living the dream of winning golds and should be banging everything in sight. Oh wait, that is my dream but you get the point.

Picture HT: My buddy MacG who seems to be so pitted lately via SteadyBurn