This image was lost some time after publication.

Alarming reports in the national media today are painting a picture of an America in which men pursue nontraditional sports. Such a development could spell doom for football, baseball, and basketball, the three real sports that this great nation has produced which define manhood for millions of terrified young adolescent males who would really rather be playing Wii or listening to music or doing something artistic, but are instead forced to prove their mettle by getting seriously injured by their larger peers. This is how it has always been. But now, American males are being seduced by the twin threats of gymnastics and synchronized swimming. We have video evidence, and the chilling cautionary tales, below.

Right here in New York City, home to many free basketball courts, men are instead devoting their athletic prowess to gymnastics! The New York Sun visits Aviator Sports & Recreation in Brooklyn, where the gymnastics students are mostly men, who reportedly "excel" at it. Up to 30 at once! No wonder the Knicks can't find any good players!

Even scarier is the situation in San Jose, California, where 18 year-old Kenyon Smith is reportedly one of the best synchronized swimmers in the country [WSJ], despite having testicles!

Comics think synchro is great material, and when the joke is on a person of the nonfemale sex, it's a sure winner. So let's all laugh at Kenyon Smith, the male synchronized swimmer.

If the article stopped there, we would not be aroused from the warm embrace of our daily status quo. But it goes on to expose Kenyon's tragedy, which is that he cannot win a college scholarship or go to the Olympics, because he practices what is assumed to be a female sport.

His predicament touched our heart! Is it possible that there may be other acceptable venues for male physical movement outside of baseball (the American pastime), football (the more violent American pastime), basketball (the urban American pastime), and heterosexual sexual relations (the acceptable political American pastime)? We must admit that the possibility exists. Although its implications for the Knicks still tear our heart in two. Below, video of Kenyon Smith at work [pic and video via WSJ].