On tonight's 6:00 p.m. SportsCenter — beginning shortly here on the East Coast — ESPN will air an interview of Barack Obama that was conducted by street-born puffmaster Stuart Scott.  Some tidbits of the conversation:

Scott: If the Cubs and the White Sox both make it to the World Series?
Obama: I would be going.
Scott: Who would you root for?
Obama: Oh, that's easy. White Sox. I'm not one of these fair weather fans. You go to Wrigley Field, you have a beer, beautiful people up there. People aren't watching the game. It's not serious. White Sox, that's baseball. Southside.

Well… it's not quite calling Cubs fans "douchebags," but I suppose it'll do.  There's more over at Awful Announcing if you don't have a television or an hour of your life to waste watching SportsCenter.  It includes the “If your vice president had to be an athlete, who would you pick?” softball, which Obama whiffs on by picking Walter Payton, calling him "durable" in his answer.  Might wanna qualify that when you talk about a dead guy, Barry.

The Jimmy V Classic after party was Sunday night in Raleigh, and Dave's Football Blog caught ESPN anchor Stuart Scott in action, along with notables Branford Marsalis and Dennis Haskins (aka Principal Belding).  Sadly, there was no Charles Barkley this year. 

Anyway, the Jimmy V thingy is a charitable cause, so this isn't particularly worthy of derision except for Scott's horrific karaoke rendition of "I'll Be," easily one of the top-five most pussified songs of all time.  "I'll be your crying shoulder, I'll be your love suicide."  What the fuck does that even mean?  Shoulders don't cry.  Love doesn't commit suicide.  Why would he be love suicide?  Is that supposed to be a good thing?  Goddammit what a terrible song.

Video after the jump.  Please only watch it if you're prepared to hate Stu the rest of your life.  That is, if you don't already, of course.

So, Stuart Scott, Mr. Belding, and Charles Barkley walk into a bar.  I know that sounds like the beginning of a lame joke, but it's actually just the foundation for a lame party.

But perhaps I'm being unfair.  Maybe some hot chicks challenged Barkley in the wet t-shirt contest.  And maybe Stu Scott killed it on the mic.  His SportsCenter poetry slams have always been so moving… for my bowels!  (I don't even know what that means, but I'm pretty sure Stu just got served.)

Not-all-that-exciting UPDATE: Dave's Football Blog was present for this shindig at Fat Daddy's in Raleigh, the after-party for the Jimmy V Classic in 2006.

[Don Chavez, and yes I know Belding's real name is Dennis Haskins]

Last month, as doctors performed an emergency appendectomy on ESPN's preferred bro-dawg Stuart Scott, they discovered a malignancy in his guts.  Following a second surgery to remove the icky tissue, Scott will undergo chemotherapy this winter.  However, he still plans to return to the air tomorrow.

"Talk about a shocker," Scott said. "But I feel good… I'm not the type of guy to let this eat up my life. I've got strong faith and family and friends who are tackling this with me. I can't find the words to express how much I appreciate everyone's thoughts and prayers. I probably won't be able to get back to you all; but know it means a ton."

For what it's worth, I'd also like to wish Stuart Scott well… in that I don't wish him any particular harm. Additionally…

Scott was in Pittsburgh for a Nov. 26 game between the Steelers and Miami when he became ill.

Thus answering my question, Does Pittsburgh cause cancer?  The answer: Yes, yes it does.

I enjoy SportsCenter's highlights, but I've always been disappointed in its decided lack of poetry slams.  So thank you, Stuart Scott, for raising sports commentary up to an artistic plane.  This clip practically moved me to tears, so gorgeous was his imagery, so flow-y was his flow, so… adequate were his rhymes.

One thing's for certain: this should finally bring poetry slams into the national limelight they so richly deserve, instead of wallowing in the shadows while hacks like Taylor Mali do things like "perform" and "make points artfully."  All you poets who think you're doing it right: all I have to say to you is "BOO-YA!"

[Mr. Irrelevant] 

Well, I guess this is why they call him The Big Lead: the newest post on the sports blog that fucks up everything for famous people in the sports media has a rather revealing email about Stu Scott's extramarital activities. Following up on AJ Daulerio's Super Bowl week expose of Stu's proposed booty call with a model/former cheerleader, a TBL reader writes, in part,

[W]hen I worked at ESPN in [date redacted], he was all about that white meat and I don’t mean the chicken carver at Boston Market. He was happily married and still he used to pick up one of our co-workers who lived in [place redacted] in Bristol and they would occasionally go to the diner after work. She had a sick body and was a workout fiend… We would all joke with her about Stu and she would coyly play it off like only a hot girl (in a world with a 100:1 male to female ratio) could get away with.

[About another girl:] She was nice enough, but her main qualification was that she was extremely hot and had been someone’s date at the ESPYs before working as a P.A. at ESPN. Anyways, I observed Stu hitting on her one night… and he was in full “I’m a big deal” mode, babbling on about being V.I.P. with cristal and all this shit.

Not that I care, of course. White women are delicious. As Stu will surely tell us on the next SportsCenter: Hate the game, people. Hate the game. Because a playa's gotta play.