Dr. Giganto

Thanks to Crock for giving me some info on football/soccer. If anybody would like to add anything else they think is note-worthy, feel free

Baseball

The week started with the All-Star break, and the talk of the break was Philadelphia Phillies slugger Bobby Abreu. The Venezuelan crushed 24 homeruns in the first round of Monday's Home Run Derby, shattering the previous record of 15, owned by miguel Tejada. David Ortiz of the Boston Red Sox also eclipsed Tejada's previous record, belting 17 home runs in the first round, but failed to make it to the final. In the final, Abreu beat Ivan Rodriguez's in front of Pudge's hometown fans, hitting a record 41 homeruns in total

In the actual All-Star game, the American League continued their yearly dominance in a 7-5 game that was not as close as the score indicated. Tejada was named MVP, going 2-3 with a home run and 2 RBIs. Mark Teixeira and Andruw Jones also homered in the game. Jones's homerun came against Kenny Rogers, who was booed loudly during introductions and during the game

When the regular season resumed, the Chicago White Sox continued their dominance, sweeping a series with division rival Celveland. Elsewhere, the Houston Astros were surging before the break, but ran into the pride of the National League, the St. Louis Cardinals. The Cards swept the Astros, despite facing Houston's pitching trio of Clemens, Oswalt, and Pettitte.

Also, the Yankees took 3 of 4 at Boston to pull to within a half-game of the first place Red Sox, tying Minnesota for the Wild Card spot as well. The Yankees were greatly aided by newly-acquired Al Leiter, who returned to the team that drafted him 21 years ago, giving up one earned run in 6 1/3 innings. Curt Schilling returned to the Red Sox in a relief role, and gave up a game-winning two-run homerun to Alex rodriguez on Thursday night. He pitched much better, however, in Saturday's contest.

And last, but certainly not least, Baltimore Orioles first baseman Rafael Palmeiro got his 3,000th hit for his career over the weekend. He becomes only the 4th player ever with 3,000 hits and 500 homeruns, joining Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, and Eddie Murray, all of whom are in the Hall of Fame.

Hockey

The players union and the owners finally reached an agreement, putting an end to the lockout that wiped out an entire season. In the end, the players accepted a deal that was worse for them than the deal they rejected several months ago.

Basketball

Ron Artest returned to the court for the first time since the ugly November 19th brawl in Detroit. The Indiana Pacers forward scored 23 points in a summer league game.

In the college ranks, it was revealed that North Carolina coach Roy Williams broke NCAA rules in providing gifts to some of his players while coaching at the University of Kansas.

Golf

Tiger Woods continued his dominance this year, capturing his second British Open crown. Tiger led almost wire-to-wire, and finished with a 5-stroke lead over Colin Montgomerie. In Majors this year, Tiger has two first place and one second place finish. Tiger now has 10 Major championships in his career

Also, Friday saw the last professional round of Jack Nicklaus's career. Nicklaus failed to make the cut, and retired as one of golf's greatest golfers ever.

Football/soccer

The biggest transfer story of the summer will come to a conclusion within the next 48 hours as Andy Cole looks set to sign for Manchester City on a free.

In other transfer news Chelsea will sign Shaun-Wright Phillips for a staggering £21 Million and Patrick Vieira as signed for Juventus for £12,750,000

The season started in the past week with Liverpool starting their defence of the Champuions Legue with a 3-0 win over TNS in the 1st Leg of the qualifier thanks to a Steven Gerrard hat-trick

Also Newcastle started their Into-Toto cup Campaign with a 3-1 win over Slovakian side Dubnica