Michael Phelps is wading through the baby pool in a colorful Speedo, his famous Olympic rings tattoo peeking suggestively out from his bathing suit.
And he's surrounded by kids who couldn't care less. The Harford County Boys & Girls Club had been told someone maybe even more exciting is about to join them.
"Is it Kobe?" they ask hopefully.
Not exactly. It's Shaquille O'Neal, the towering basketball star who's traveling around the country, challenging other athletes at their own sports for his new TV show. Phelps is his latest target. The physically gifted duo are all over Baltimore this weekend, entourage in tow, filming footage for the episode of "Shaq Vs." that will air Sept. 15 on ABC.
Before Shaq and Phelps splashed each other at the Meadowbrook swim club Saturday, they held court at an Inner Harbor media event and dined together at Red Star near Phelps' Fells Point home. Their swim-off goes down today at Loyola University's aquatic center.
O'Neal, who's about a foot taller than Phelps and more than 100 pounds heavier, wouldn't seem to stand a chance against the multigold medalist.
Even he says so.
"It doesn't matter what you do cause it's not going to work," he says.
Shaq does have a pool at home but mainly uses it to dive for rocks with his kids. ("I'd beat him at that, easily," he jokes.)
As for Phelps, he says for the cameras that he's been losing sleep, fretting about the match. Cameras off, he admits he hasn't really worked out in five weeks.
Though Phelps is also sporting a knee-high injury boot, protecting the ankle he injured in his recent Baltimore car crash, he plays it down, joking the boot "might be fake" to throw Shaq off-game.
Of course even with a sleepless Phelps, with an injured ankle, and maybe in the suit and tie he wore to the news conference, it's still not likely to be much of a race - which is where the handicapping comes in.
Producers talked about everything from making Phelps swim double the pool length, of weighting him down, to actually tying his famous dolphin-kicking feet together. What they do will be a surprise.
After playfully sparring at the news conference - at one point Shaq egged on Phelps to jump into the murky harbor water and get the swim on right there - and then delighting the Boys & Girls Club kids, the two staged some "practice" footage at Meadowbrook.
