THE BIG SPORTS WEEKEND

It should be a good baseball weekend. With the trading deadline on Monday, hopefully there will be a few consummated deals to discuss. But in case there are not, my readers will be fine because here's your combined TOTW post for the weekend.

Saturday, July 29 - POKER: 2006 World Series of Poker

Even though a winner won't be crowned until mid-August, and we won't see coverage on ESPN until later in the summer, I'll be interested to see the reports of this annual tournament of craziness in its second day. I first heard of the WSOP about 10 years ago listening to late-night tales from contestant and Miami sports radio host Ed Kaplan on WQAM radio. It sounded wild back then and my impression has been confirmed by watching ESPN coverage of the event the past few years. 8580 players ponied up the $10,000 entrance fee with dreams of winning the estimated $11.7 million payout to the winner. My pick: Another amateur who plays online power (not called Francase).

Sunday, July 30 - AUTO RACING: Michigan Indy 400

The IRL has been in the news lately with Danica Patrick's fliration with the lucrative world of NASCAR. Thankfully, she turned down the offers of her Southern compatriots and will be returning to the IRL next year. Maybe one day, but for now Danica needs to stay in open wheel racing and win races, perhaps even the Indy 500. She's too good and can make history with a top ride. Hopefully she'll get one next year from Andretti-Green racing. That team won its first race of the year last week at Milwaukee with Tony Kanaan's strong run. I expect both Penske and Ganassi Racing to make better showings this week on the fast 2 mile oval, Michigan Speedway. My pick: Scott Dixon.

Here's the IRL's original female fan-favorite, Sarah Fisher. I saw Sarah at an appearance for a Kroger grocery store a few years ago and she was pretty cute in person. I later saw her car go up in flames in one of the most kick-ass wrecks ever at Atlanta Motor Speedway. She's also pretty tough.



N.B. - I'm nearing my 1,000 visitor. Ignoring that 250 of those are probably me, I'm going to rip off my friend TSL and attempt to track the 1,000th visitor to celebrate (or if you notice that you happen to be the 1,000th visitor, send me an email and let me know). I shall reward the lucky person with a pick of his own choice for the "One to Watch" for a day next week. So keep hitting "refresh" and you too can pick the official TOTW.