It’s kind of a weird time, sports-wise. Baseball pennant races are starting to heat up, although the Diamondbacks are clearly not involved. The NFL pre-season is underway, it’ll be a few weeks until the games actually mean something. But here in the Valley, this is a big sporting weekend. For one, Saturday the Arizona Rattlers of the Arena Football League will try to three-peat, when they take on the hometown Gladiators. The Rattlers finished their season 17-3. They’ve beaten Philadelphia in the last two Arena Bowls - and are looking for their fifth Arena Bowl Championship overall.

The Mercury host the LA Sparks Friday night in game one of their WNBA play-off series - they play game two in Los Angeles on Sunday. The Mercury finished the regular season 29-5, and had a 16-game winning streak from mid-June until the end of July. The Sparks, by the way, finished the regular season below .500, and lost all five games they played to the Mercury.