UNITED STATES OF AMERICA—As baseball continues to die a slow, strangled death across the country, many are correctly wondering if women's gymnastics has finally taken its rightful place atop the athletic consciousness of the nation. "As I was watching a baseball contest between my favorite team and its top rival, I felt a persistent emptiness that only lifted when I changed the channel to the delicate grace and power of Cheng Fei's uneven bars routine," said American resident Brian Johnson, bedecked in a Chinese women's gymnastics warm-up jacket and Cheng Fei replica jersey. Added Eastern American city resident Fred Smith, "Baseball is the national pastime of a dying nation. Now when there is a bright, sunny summer day, the only thing I desire is to take my son into the gymnasium to watch Deng Linlin take some practice vaults or get He Kexin's signature on a rosin bag. I have already burned by childhood mitt and my collection of bats. Baseball is a fleeting memory." The entire country is also steadfastly agreed that Shawn Johnson is an ungainly lumbering musk ox and American women's gymnastics remains worthless.鱼