Great, just what this Yankees season needs…a storyline that reads like something out of a movie from 1969. Via Newsday:

A-Rod may have made one too many errors — in his marriage, that is.

While Rodriguez deals with accusations that he’s been cavorting with Madonna, now comes the news out of left field that his wife Cynthia has fled to Paris for a romantic fling with rocker Lenny Kravitz.

According to reports, Cynthia left her two children, the youngest just 3½ months old, back at their Miami home before flying to Paris.

The wild rumor, first reported by perezhilton.com Wednesday, is particularly odd because Madonna and Kravitz used to be an item. The two go back to 1990, the year they first became an item and wrote Madonna’s hit “Justify My Love” together.

Hey, look, this stuff comes with the territory. Go read “The Big Bam.” As great as Babe Ruth was on the field, the Yankees had to deal with all the off-the-field stuff that came with the Bambino too. This is what happens with the biggest star, highest paid player, etc. – especially when he’s a bit of a “playa.”

Still, it’s terrible timing on all this. If the Red Sox coming to town isn’t reason enough for ESPN (and the like) to be all over the Yankees like hair on soap, this just makes it worse. Sure, A-Rod’s been down this road before – with the Joslyn Morse thing, his wife’s choice of T-shirts, and the second Canseco book – and has been able to “no comment” his way out of it. But, this time might be different.

And, there’s a difference between the days of Ruth and now. The media protected players, to an extent, back then on affairs and stuff…heck, the media almost agreed in 1973 to not bring up the whole Fritz Peterson and Mike Kekich thing because it was ‘not baseball related’…however, these days, ESPN (and others) live for a chance to play up these stories.

Get ready to hear a lot more on this one.

For an eventual blow-out…this game had some back-and-forth swings for me…in terms of a comfort level.

When Jason Giambi hit that slam in the third, to turn a 3-1 hole into a 5-3 lead, I still wasn’t feeling too comfortable about getting a “W” here – because of how the Yankees have been playing lately and because Sidney Ponson was pitching for New York.

And, when Chris Davis hit that long homerun off Ponson in the sixth to give the Rangers the lead again, 7-6, I thought “O.K., here we go again…”

But, then came the bottom of the seventh. Wow. Welcome to the big leagues, Warner Madrigal.

Once the Yankees had an 8-run lead with 6 outs to go, I was pretty darn comfortable. And, the dress was in the bag.

However, before we get too giddy about this one in Yankeeland…we should remember that the big 9-run seventh inning did come mostly at the expense of Warner Madrigal – who, again, was making his big league debut; and, who just converted to pitching (after being an outfielder) three years ago. It’s not everyday that you get to run your $209 million team up against someone that green.

Still, it’s better to face the Red Sox coming off a game like this in the Bronx – than to face them coming off a sweep, by the Rangers, for sure.

Via the Post -

With Alex Rodriguez’s budding friendship with Madonna making headlines, Yankees owner Hank Steinbrenner is hinting that “outside distractions” are causing the team’s offense to break his heart.

Steinbrenner told The Associated Press today, “We’ve got to start hitting. It’s getting ridiculous.”

Though he did not mention Rodriguez by name, Steinbrenner said, “We all know they’re better than that. I don’t know. Maybe a little less outside distractions and a little more concentrating and they’ll start hitting better.”

Since a 9-0 win over the Mets on Friday, the Yankees have scored seven runs in losing three of four games.

Rodriguez, whose visits to Madonna’s apartment came to light Tuesday amid rumors of her possible divorce, is 2-for-17 (.118) in his past five games.

Steinbrenner, the team’s co-chairman, said he has been surprised by the inconsistent offense, but noted that it’s been an area of concern for general manager Brian Cashman.

“Even when I was worried about the pitching earlier – starting pitching is the most important thing of all – but Brian would keep telling me, ‘Yes, but I worried about the hitting,’” Steinbrenner said. “That was Brian’s biggest concern even as we were reconstructing the pitching. … I thought they would go on a consistent tear, and it hasn’t happened yet.”

“Not just this one series, but maybe the next couple series is going to be pivotal,” Steinbrenner said.

“We can definitely still make a run at it,” Steinbrenner said.

I’m having Big Stein & Reggie flashbacks as I read this one. Maybe Hank thinks he can get A-Rod going the way Mussina went on a roll after the “Jamie Moyer” thing (from Hank)? I dunno. Alex is a lot of things…but, he’s not Reggie Jackson.

The bigger and hotter the situation, the better it was for Reggie. It doesn’t work that way with A-Rod. He tries too hard. If anything, it’s probably a better approach to try and take some of the pressure off Alex…than to try and prod him by applying more heat.

I had to travel into New York City today to take a psychometric assessment for a potential long-term contractual job with a major international financial institution. The assessment is one of these two hour tests where they look into your verbal, numerical and abstract reasoning abilities as well as your personality profile.

So, I jumped on the train (New Jersey Transit) this morning and headed into the city. When I got on the train, there was a group sitting across from me. They were all in their early- to mid-twenties. It was three guys and two girls. From their conversation, I could tell that they were headed into the city for a while and then heading to the Yankees game.

While they were chatting, one of the guys actually said “Sidney Ponson is pitching for the Yankees. He’s five and one; so, he’s one of their best pitchers.”

No, he wasn’t joking when he said this to his friends.

When I heard him say this, I thought to myself “Gosh, this guy is an idiot.”

It’s too bad that my psychometric assessment administrators were not there for my observation. I mean, how’s that for abstract reasoning abilities? Maybe that would have been proof enough and I could have saved myself a trip into the city (and seven and a half hours) in the process?

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Kevin Kernan has a nice story running today, in the Post, about Alex Rodriguez and John Challis. (Although, Kevin did manage to slip in a mention of the “Madonna” thing in there too). Click here to read it.