By: Hubble Smith, Sports Editor

For me, the month of October begins in the spring. Flowers blooming, birds singing, mitts popping. It’s the season my wife goes into hibernation.

One of my favorite springtime traditions in Las Vegas is Big League Weekend, which in its 24th year brought the Chicago Cubs and New York Mets to Cashman Field for two exhibition games March 15-16. About 20,000 baseball fans soaked in 80-degree afternoons at beautiful Cashman Field watching the Cubs and Mets split two games.

Most of them were loyal legions of the Cubs, wearing T-shirts and jerseys with names like Sosa, Pryor, Santo, Wood and Zambrano. The Cubs have made 13 trips to Las Vegas for Big League Weekend and they get a strong following from Chicago transplants living here and all the Chicagoans looking for the slightest reason to visit.

By: Hubble Smith, Sports Editor

Other than having a little fun on the Strip and drawing a lot of media attention in his hometown, it was a disappointing trip back to Las Vegas for 18-year-old NASCAR driver Dylan Kwasniewski.

He smacked the wall during practice for the Boyd Gaming 300 Nationwide Series race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and Turner Scott Motorsports had to unload the backup No. 31 Chevy Camaro. He made contact with the wall again in Turn 3 after a wreck on the 70th lap of Saturday’s race and finished 24th among the field of 40 cars.

With the Busch brothers in the Sprint Cup race and Brendan Gaughan and Dylan Kwasniewski in the Nationwide race, our town is well represented this weekend at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Credit late casino owners Bill Bennett (Sahara) and Ralph Engelstad (Imperial Palace) for putting Las Vegas on the national racing map. They built Las Vegas Motor Speedway for $250 million and the Indy Racing League christened the 1.5-mile tri-oval in 1996.