The All-Star game is baseball’s celebration of transcendent talent and league loyalty. For one game a year, fierce rivals suit up on the same team, and the fans get to root for the best players in the sport, not just their hometown stars. But tonight at the 2009 All-Star game in St. Louis, Barack Obama will take the mound to hurl the first ceremonial pitch with no plans for hiding his personal team loyalty. According to a White House source, the president will once again suit up in the gear of his hometown Chicago White Sox. (Not clear if this will just be a cap, or a cap and jacket or jersey, or the far more unlikely stirrup socks and cleats.)

U.S. Presidents have been throwing out first pitches at baseball games since William Howard Taft at Griffith Stadium in 1910. And for decades, they have been showing up at games in the garb of their favored teams. Ronald Reagan wore a Chicago Cubs jacket. Bill Clinton donned the orange bird of Baltimore. George W. Bush went National in the nation’s capital. But the best I can tell, today will be the first time that a U.S. president has ever played a favoring fan at an All-Star Game.