WASHINGTON - The Renaissance Washington Hotel - home this week to much of the Illinois delegation to the presidential inauguration - has a tradition in its “Presidents Sports Bar” of hanging up large framed photographs of the current president engaged in various sports activities.

The first changing of that guard in eight years came around lunchtime today, when maintenance workers began taking down the photos of President George W. Bush, throwing out a first pitch at a baseball game and some other action shots.

When the workers began hanging the Barack Obama sports photos in their place, the lunch crowd in the bar went nuts.

“It was absolute pandemonium,” reported Illinois state Rep. Tom Holbrook, D-Belleville, who was there. “People broke out in cheers, applause. It was a wave of excitement that just took over the whole room.”

The photos include Obama as a child swinging a bat, Obama shooting pool, and even Obama’s politically catastrophic attempt at bowling during last year’s primaries.