It would have been so easy to just write off Milton Bradley's season-ending ACL injury -- suffered as his own manager threw him to the ground in an attempt to keep him from doing bodily harm to umpire Mike Winters -- as just another case (albeit arguably the most extreme one) of Milton being Milton.

But on Wednesday, MLB seemed to support the validity of Bradley's allegation that he was baited into the confrontation when it suspended Winters for the remainder of the regular season.

On the other hand, there is absolutely ZERO validity to the allegation that, in true Old Testament eye-for-an-eye, tooth-for-a-tooth fashion, that the Padres have requested that Bob Watson, baseball's vice president in charge of discipline, complete Winters' punishment by hurling the umpire to the ground, rupturing his anterior cruciate ligament in the process.

I know there's no validity to that rumor because, well, I pretty much fabricated the whole thing out of thin air. But I do think there'd be some value to MLB busting out Hammurabi's Code when disciplining its employees.

You know, like Roger Goodell does.

Can we blame this election outcome on the Diebold machines? Or maybe there was some form of voter intimidation at work (Barry Bonds can be pretty intimidating, you know).

Did the Supreme Court get involved somehow and issue some convoluted 5-4 ruling that blasting Bonds' 756th home run ball into orbit (literally) was somehow a violation of the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution?

Because those are the only explanations that I can come up with for Option C (that would be "Banish It") in Marc Ecko's "let the public decide what to do with the Bonds ball" experiment not only failing to win the online vote, but coming in a distant third with a mere 19% of the vote.

Now while I'm pleased that the ball will not be heading to Cooperstown untarnished (it will have an asterisk branded into the cover before Ecko hands it over to the Hall of Fame), I feel an opportunity is being missed here.

Because, let's face it, the International Space Station isn't floating anyone's boat. And sadly, the only time NASA can get our attention these days is when tiles start falling off the space shuttle again.

Blasting Bonds' home run ball into the deep recesses out outer space was the last chance to make the U.S. space program relevant to ordinary people again ... and you, the voting public, just blew it. Just like you always do.

The wild card may have denied fans a repeat of 1978 (and I'm sure Red Sox Nation is just absolutely heartbroken that they won't get to see Shelley Duncan playing the role of Bucky "Bleeping" Dent), but there is an almost equally important (not to mention closely contested) race being played out between baseball's most storied rivals.

Specifically, in the arena of rookie hazing.

And in a case of embarrassing sporting rituals mimicking life, the Red Sox jumped out to a seemingly insurmountable early lead thanks to their willingness to thoroughly confuse Japanese import Daisuke Matsuzaka with what has to be one of this country's more baffling customs -- i.e., forcing a grown man and supposed professional to dress up as Tinky Winky.

But the Yankees have rallied in a big way, going for a Wizard of Oz motif complete with Scarecrow (Duncan), Cowardly Lion (Joba Chamberlain), Tin Man (Phil Hughes), Glenda the Good Witch (Chase Wright) and Dorothy (Ian Kennedy). I can only assume that means George Steinbrenner is hiding somewhere, pulling all sorts of strings and levers and instructing Joe Torre to "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain."

So to sum up ...

You've got the Red Sox rookies dressing up as Teletubbies, which have long been rumored to espouse a certain lifestyle. Then on the other hand, unless nobody on the Yankees likes Ian Kennedy, it's completely accurate to say the team currently employs several friends of Dorothy.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Proving once and for all that it really is the No Fun League, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has reportedly banned teams from using their cheerleaders to distract visiting teams.

According to Charley Casserly's report on the CBS pregame show, all 32 teams were sent a memo that stated, "No longer will (cheerleaders) be allowed to warm up in front of the visiting team locker room or do their stretching in front of the visiting team locker room. ... The reason? Some players feel they were being a little distracted."

What? Look at that picture at the right. Are you telling me that's going to distract a professional from, um, doing ... um, the job, you know ... um, he's being paid for, hmmm ...

I'm sorry, what was I saying?

NHL legend Gordie Howe and his wife, Colleen, have won a temporary restraining order barring a neighbor from conducting surveillance on his Bloomfield Township, Michigan home.

No, the Howes don't live next door to Bill Belichick.

According to the eight-count stalking lawsuit filed Tuesday, the Howes live next door to Lionel and Karen Dorfman, a retired couple in their 70s who apparently spend every waking moment photographing the Howe homestead.

And pretty much all their sleeping moments, too.

The Howes are claiming the Dorfmans have had a camera snapping pictures of their house every five seconds. That's more than 17,000 photos a day, which seems excessive, even given the Bush administration's interpretation as to the scope of the FISA court's mandate.

In their defense, the Dorfmans maintain the Howes have been using their home for business purposes since 2006 -- a clear violation of homeowner association rules and township laws.

The Dorfmans will abide by the court's ruling for now. But if the Howes try to paint their home in a color scheme that isn't HOA approved or erect a fence in excess of four feet, then the gloves are coming off.

Of course, Howe would probably prefer to drop the gloves. So maybe that's not such a good idea.