When it flashed across our computer screen yesterday – Brad Penny named All-Star game starter for the National League – we were genuinely bewildered.

And then it hit us – ahhhhhh, it’s the Alyssa Milano connection. That’s how he pulled this off. You see, Penny dated Milano in 2005 after she had worked her way through fellow pitchers Carl Pavano (interestingly, a former teammate of Penny in Florida) and Barry Zito. Unfortunately, Penny (pictured above in a sartorial selection he’d sooner forget) and Milano split sometime this past offseason.

With Milano the only bonafide celebrity in Pittsburgh for the week’s festivities, the NL was forced to start Penny so that FOX could provide us with no less than three visuals of the cute and busty Who’s the Boss? star during the game, and so that Joe Buck could reference the romance in the first inning in an attempt to retain that large segment of the audience that fancies “Charmed.” Tim McCarver’s only response will be, “You’re a real man Brad Penny.”

Brandon Webb never stood a chance.

Derby Seen (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)