It will be a special day for former Roland Rangers and Arkansas Razorbacks baseball player Jaxon Wiggins.

Wiggins will be one of the National League All-Stars in Saturday afternoon’s Major League Baseball Futures All-Star Game, which will take place at Truist Park — the home of the Atlanta Braves — which also will be the site of Tuesday night’s MLB All-Star Game.

Wiggins, who currently is playing with the Double-A Knoxville Smokies, was drafted by the Chicago Cubs on July 9, 2023, and signed a $1.4-million contract with the Cubs before the month ended.

In 2022, his only season with the Diamond Hogs, he struck out 82 batters in just 66 innings.

Brother Carson just completed his freshman season with the Razorbacks this past spring.

Good luck, Jaxon.

Back at It for Local Athletes

Now that “Dead Week” is over, you’re now going to see high school football players, fast-pitch softball players, cross country runners and cheerleaders back at it hard and heavy as they continue to prepare for the 2025 fall season and the 2025-26 athletic season as a whole.

As the announcers call it during the final stages of a horse race, “Down the stretch they come.” For example, in just less than six weeks, high school football practice, or as some coaches will call it “Fall Camp,” will begin on Aug. 11, which also will be the day our eight local softball teams will begin their 2025 season.

As legendary singer Phil Collins sings, “I can feel it in the air tonight.” Can’t you all also feel the start of high school athletes in the air as well?

SGA Becomes Latest OKC Thunder Player to Sign Contract Extension On July 1, Oklahoma City Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander became the second current player to sign a contract extension.

Gilgeous-Alexander, who was the National Basketball Association Most Valuable Player and NBA Finals MVP this past season as the Thunder claimed their first NBA championship since the franchise moved from Seattle before the 2008-09 season, signed a four-year, $285 million extension with the Thunder, which will make him the highestpaid player in NBA with an average salary of $71.3 million per season.

The question is, who’s next?

WNBA Expansion

On June 30, it was announced by Women’s National Basketball Association Commissioner Cathy Engelbert that the WNBA is going to expand to 18 teams by the 2030 season with the addition of three teams that will be joining the previously announced teams that will begin playing in the 2026 season — Portland, Ore., and Toronto.

There will be a franchise in Cleveland for the 2028 season, one in Detroit in 2029 and one in Philadelphia in 2030.

If you remember, during the second season of the league’s existence in 1998, there was the Detroit Shock, which happened to win WNBA championships in 2003, 2006 and 2008. However, after the 2009 season, the franchise moved to Tulsa — becoming the state’s second top-level professional team after the Oklahoma City Thunder moved from Seattle the season prior. After the 2014 season, the Shock left Tulsa and became the Dallas Wings, where the team has been ever since.

I have to wonder with the Thunder’s success will the WNBA return to “The Sooner State,” either in OKC or in Tulsa. Time will tell.

Hot at Wimbledon, both in matches and temperature The opening week of the 2025 Wimbledon Tournament, known in jolly ol’ England as “The Championships,” was hot.

Matches wise, defending women’s singles champion Barbora Krejcikova was upset last week as was women’s third-seeded player Jessica Pegula, American player and the 2025 French Open women’s champion Coco Gauff and men’s third-seeded player Alexander Zverev to name just a few.

As of Friday, 19 seeded men’s players and 17 seeded women’s players had been eliminated.

If that wasn’t hot enough, so, too, was the opening-day temperatures on June 30, with the temperatures getting into the 90s. There was a fan who passed out during defending men’s singles champion Carlos Alcaraz’s openinground match. It showed him giving his water bottle to the suffering fan.

It just goes to show you that Oklahoma isn’t the only place battling the heat.

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Seeley is the sports editor of the Vian Tenkiller News. He can be reached by calling (918) 7754433, Ext. 139 or by emailing him at davids@ cookson.news.