Hey, Milton Bradley's been designated for assignment! Did anyone hear about this? Anyone at all?

Nope. Me neither.

If there's a bright side to this sudden turn of events -- Milton Bradley was one of your correspondent's favorite Athletics, you see -- it's the potential to find unintentional comedy while perusing the Athletics' official Web site.

I call this screen grab of the headline feed "What A Difference Two Headlines Make."

And I call this one "Is It Too Late to Ask Our Fans to Write In Jack Cust?"

Actually, I'm not usually that in to All-Star Voting -- America demands its fill of Yankee and Red Sox starters and there's not a darn thing me and my meager clutch of ballots can do about it -- but if anything could ever inspire me to commit voter fraud on a widespread and massive level, it's the prospect of having Milton Bradley represent the A's at the All-Star Game less than a month after being told to hit the bricks. I'm very tempted to rent an awl and go to town on every last ballot I can get my hands on; I'm even entertaining the possibility of creating multiple identities to tilt the online balloting in Milt's favor. And I encourage all of you to do the same. I figure a million votes or so will help put Milton over the top, and that's a tall order. But when he takes the field at AT&T Park in street clothes next month, it'll all be worth it.