TOUGH TIME TO BLEED AMERICAN

Colombia’s Juan Pablo Montoya won the last Nextel Cup race. Japanese manufacturer Toyota took the pole for today’s stop at New Hampshire International Speedway. In a related development, Prozac prescriptions to guys named Bubba went up 300 percent last week.

RICH GEDMAN DID IT ONCE, FOR HEAVEN’S SAKE

The Orioles’ Aubrey Huff hit for the cycle Friday night. That pretty much clinches it: The cycle is nothing more than dumb luck. As baseball accomplishments go, it’s right up there with selling out when the Red Sox or Yankees come to town.

FRIVOLOUS SUIT

Memo to NBA Commissioner David Stern: Glad that all the sound and fury about your much-maligned dress code faded away months ago. Now, could you rewrite the thing to ban whatever the hell Joakim Noah wore to the draft?

FROZEN ASSETS

The NHL salary cap is increasing to $50.3 million per team next season. Funny. I can’t picture the Columbus Blue Jackets, Phoenix Coyotes, Tampa Bay Lightning and Atlanta Thrashers having that much annual revenue combined.

CAN’T MAKE YOU LOVE ME

NFL Europa is dead. Fair enough. When Major League Soccer goes belly-up by 2010, we’ll call it even, OK?

KICKING ACE AND TAKING NAMES

Freddy Deeb won $2.3 million at the end of a 15-hour final table Friday, claiming the fifth-largest jackpot in World Series of Poker history. With his earnings, Deeb will purchase the ‘w’ that was inadvertently left off his birth certificate.

TRY THE MILKSHAKE CONTEST

Takeru Kobayashi is seeing a specialist and a chiropractor for treatment of jaw pain that could keep him from defending his title at the Nathan’s Independence Day hot dog eating championship. Thankfully, we don’t get that kind of detailed information every time a pitcher is sidelined with a “sore groin.”