As I pointed out last week, President Barack Obama just loves having sports champions visit him at the White House, so it came as no surprise when the St. Louis Cardinals popped in yesterday to be honored for winning the 2011 World Series. As he does with all of his champion guests, Obama praised the Cardinals for a variety of reasons, but most notably he called them the greatest comeback team in baseball history. Then I giggled and ordered the Cardinals World Series DVD on Amazon.

But the real talk of yesterday’s visit was the people who were missing from this celebration, including the Cardinals’ former manager Tony LaRussa and Albert Pujols, who said that he wouldn’t leave the Cardinals over a difference of a few million dollars a year but then left the Cardinals over a difference of a few million dollars a year. Also missing were Gold Glove catcher Yadier Molina and pitcher Adam Wainwright, who can do whatever they please, as well as error machine Ryan Theriot, who is no longer a Cardinal and can therefore go take a poop on the moon.

After the jump you can watch the highlights of Obama’s brilliant speech about how the Cardinals are the greatest team in the history of sports and how Pujols is the devil and will be locked up for the rest of his life at Guantanamo Bay (at least that’s what I took away from it) or you can watch the whole thing here. Either way, at least check out Barry O-Bomb’s hilarious domestic violence joke, because we should all laugh at women beating their husbands with bats.

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"And I'm serious about taxing that ass."

When the NBA lockout stretched into what would have been the first week of the season, I’m sure not many of the Dallas Mavericks players were concerned about whether or not they’d be able to visit the White House to celebrate their 2010-11 NBA Championship with President Barack Obama. But when the season finally began, a few reports trickled out that the Mavs – specifically owner Mark Cuban – were pretty pissed that they didn’t have a game against the Washington Wizards in D.C. so they could stop by 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. and slap a few high fives with Barry O.

Thankfully, NBA Commissioner David Stern told everyone to chillax and the Mavericks dropped by the White House yesterday to give Obama his latest personalized championship jersey. And on January 17, Obama will receive yet another jersey when the St. Louis Cardinals will visit him to celebrate their World Series victory. Sadly, Albert Pujols will not be making the trip, presumably because Glenn Beck told him that Obama will take all of his new money (I’m so excited that I can finally make these jokes!).

But thinking about these two visits, I eventually started to wonder when this tradition of championship teams visiting the White House began, and thankfully CBS News reporter Mark Knoller already did the dirty work and determined that Calvin Coolidge was the first POTUS to honor champions, specifically the 1924 Washington Senators. But screw Coolidge, because George W. Bush and Obama perfected the art of honoring champions. In fact, Bush had annual events to honor every NCAA sport champion for both the spring and fall, and as his first term comes to a close, Obama has welcomed more than 20 championship teams to the White House.

Maybe eventually a president will welcome a champion blogger. A boy can dream.

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