Like that scene with the awesome Regina Spektor song in 500 Days of Summer. Your expectations for the Morning Links: 12 links to galleries of Kate Upton, possibly with a Kate Upton video at the top. Okay, 11 links to galleries of Kate Upton and one about MMA. Reality: That lady can only do so much in a weekend, so you have to read about angry, heavyset soccer parents in Iowa and 11-foot tall Chinese guys.

Sports

Yao Ming: Expectations Vs. Reality - Outside of the Taiwanese Animation recap we haven’t said much about the retirement of Yao Ming, because “he was a nice guy who did pretty well at basketball” and “you guys don’t comment on posts featuring actual sports news” are hard to express in 350 words. [Smoking Section]

#Podcast: The Chris Kluwe Interview - @PUNTE continues his run of talking to real sports folks about real sports things by talking to the Minnesota Vikings punter. My New Year’s resolution now is “talk to somebody who plays for the Houston Texans, or at least knows somebody who does. Possibly one of the cheerleaders”. Who am I kidding, definitely one of the cheerleaders. [Kissing Suzy Kolber]

Hitpost Will Make You a Sports Reporter - So will getting an editor position at a popular sports blog because you made a funny webcomic, but don’t tell anybody. [Uproxx]

Olympics In The Deep South: A 15-Year Retrospective Of Atlanta’s Summer Games - 15 years later and about 10 after I found out, and I’m still jealous of Jon Bois for going to the Kurt Angle Olympics. He won a gold medal with a broken freakin’ neck! [SBN]

With Leather

The Chained Heat of Iowa Softball - If you didn’t read this because 1) it was Friday, 2) the story was a day old or 3) it is about preteen softball, you’re missing out on a great example of lookism and a video featuring Thora Birch and Christina Ricci before they were dragged onto the Hollywood F and D-teams, respectively. I miss you, Thora. Be in movies I don’t have to buy at Wal-mart to see. [With Leather]

The Great Foul Ball Debate - Last week’s best feature, still making me angry well into Monday and only slightly hurt by Burnsy not being able to recognize a developmentally-disabled guy. [With Leather]

Bynum’s Life is a Flagrant Foul - Parking across a crosswalk and a handicap spot is bad, but at least he didn’t forearm shiver any child-sized people in the parking lot. As recommended, I’m permanently associating the “Andrew Bynum” and “assholes” tags. [With Leather]

Tim Pawlenty Is The ‘Miracle On Land’ - Don’t care about politics or magical hockey stories? You should still read this, because I make the closest thing I’m ever going to make to a good political joke. Usually I just type “Obama? More like NO-bama! Keep ‘The Change’!” and stare at my monitor until my brain farts and convinces me that’s an okay thing to put on the Internet. Also, SMDH @ Tim Pawlenty. [With Leather]

Not Sports

Comic-Con Photo Diary: Part One - New professional goal: be cool/good enough that my bosses send me to places like Comic-Con to do things like photo diaries. Sure, I’m taking 200 pictures at the Round Rock Express game, but nobody’s paying me to do it. [Film Drunk]

Corgi Cosplay for Comic-Con - Keep your skinny girls trying to pass themselves off as hot by wearing dumb clothes, give me cute dogs. Arguable point: outside of Halloween and young adult mixers, only animals should be put in funny clothes for our amusement. [Warming Glow]

Super Fun “Where the Wild Things Are” Tattoos - I was going to make fun, but 1) Where the Wild Things Are (in book and movie form) is great and 2) I have a Charlotte’s Web tattoo, so who am I going to make fun of? [Gamma Squad]

Adult Swim’s Never-To-Be-Aired-On-TV “Black Dynamite” Pilot’s Online Premiere - In a better world, the Black Dynamite cartoon will get four season and be hilarious. Also in that world, cooler people appreciate “The Venture Bros.” and “Tom Goes to Mayor” never existed. [Adult Swim]

Out here, you’re tested. You face an opponent experts say can’t be beat. You fight. You bleed. You prevail. Our country’s down, but we’re not out. To come back, we need a leader with a proven record, not just rhetoric. Tim Pawlenty took on The Unions and won. He shut down a government and won. He took “Miracle on Ice” footage from the 1980 Winter Olympics and added it to his Presidential campaign ads without asking anyone’s permission and … well, okay, so that didn’t turn out so great.

From the Des Moines Register:

ABC Sports may slap presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty with a cease-and-desist letter for improperly using its footage in a political advertisement, a company official told The Des Moines Register today.

“It’s a violation of our copyright and exclusive proprietary rights,” said Louise Argianas, director of rights and clearances for ABC Sports.

The struggling Pawlenty campaign launched “The American Comeback,” a television commercial with a down-but-not-out theme, in Iowa on Wednesday.

America needs a leader who doesn’t understand basic laws. You’ve got to love that we’ve come so far with the “Obama is a socialist” thing that now he’s just blatantly being called an evil Russian from the 80s. Brigitte Nielsen should start following him around. Pawlenty’s big comeback doesn’t look like it’s going to work, so maybe next time politicians will stick to depicting children being murdered by nuclear holocaust and leave our precious sports history alone. I hope this ad was taped on the same VHS Pawlenty used to record himself pulling sweet lightsaber moves.

In a related story, President Barack Obama is prepping a campaign ad using footage of the O.J. Simpson Bronco chase. Hundreds of white guys relentlessly chase a black guy, and by the time they catch him nothing has been accomplished.

[h/t Puck Daddy]