The Daily News has the first of a three-part series profiling the career of Alex Rodriguez today, if you like that sort of thing. Rodriguez turned a nifty double play against the Tigers yesterday. John Haper called it Rodriguez's first Graig Nettles play:

"I guess you'd say it was like the birth of me being a third baseman," A-Rod said afterward. "That was the first one where I got a pretty good rush out of it, I'll tell you that."

It was a beauty, all right, A-Rod's first truly sensational play with the glove as a Yankee. He robbed Ivan Rodriguez of a double with a backhand dive, and with runners at first and second, turned the stab into a double play by scrambling to third and making an off-the-wrong-foot throw across the diamond.

Meanwhile, Bubba Crosby could make the big club coming out of spring training. With all of the high-priced studs on this team, Crosby, the Dodgers number one draft pick in 1998, is a welcome breath of air. He is often compared with Lenny Dykstra, as a hustling, scrappy kind of player. Hey, if Clay Bellinger made the team, so can Bubber.