BASEBALL A-Rod now a Yankee

Texas and New York completed the shocking trade Sunday.
NEW YORK (AP) -- Alex Rodriguez was getting ready to head to New York, and the Yankees were planning to greet him with a news conference.
The Yankees and Texas Rangers finalized the terms of their shocking trade Sunday, and the players' association approved the deal for the American League MVP.
All that remained was for baseball commissioner Bud Selig to give his OK, which the teams expected today.
"I was just as surprised as the Yankee fans and the Boston Red Sox fans when I opened up my paper today," President George W. Bush, the Rangers' former owner, told NBC at the Daytona 500. "It, obviously, is a big deal.
"A-Rod's a great player and the Yanks are going to be a heck of a team with him in the infield."
Rangers to pay some
Texas will pay $67 million of the $179 million remaining on Rodriguez's record $252 million, 10-year contract, the biggest transfer in a baseball deal, and will get All-Star second baseman Alfonso Soriano and a player to be named.
Rodriguez will move from shortstop, a position at which he's been a seven-time All-Star, to third base, where he will replace injured Aaron Boone. The Yankees will keep their captain, Derek Jeter, at shortstop.
"I don't think he ever thought about playing another position until the concept came up," said Rodriguez's agent, Scott Boras. "He decided it didn't make a difference -- shortstop, third base, center field. He wanted the opportunity to play on a competitive team."
The Rangers will wind up paying $140 million for three seasons with Rodriguez, an average of $46.7 million annually for three last-place finishes in the AL West. The Yankees will owe him $112 million over seven years.
Yankees payroll rises
Baseball's biggest spenders will raise their payroll to about $190 million.
"The disparity is not healthy for the sport," Arizona Diamondbacks owner Jerry Colangelo said. "But everyone runs their team the way they see fit, and they did it by the rules."
Boras said the possibility of a trade first came up last Monday while he was talking to the Yankees about another player. Boras then called Rodriguez.
"I said, 'There may be an opportunity. We have to talk about your goals, about winning,' " Boras recalled telling his client.
"He called me back Tuesday and discussed it further and said, 'Why don't you call [Texas owner] Tom Hicks and let him know we're ready to do that,' " Boras said.
Trade talks began the following day, and the sides reached the agreement Sunday.
Money allotment
Under the deal, the Yankees will pay Rodriguez $15 million in each of the next three seasons, $16 million each in 2007 and 2008, $17 million in 2009 and $18 million in 2010, according to contract information obtained from player and management sources.
In each of the first four years, $1 million would be deferred without interest, to be paid in 2011.
The trade calls for Texas to pay $43 million of Rodriguez's salary over the remaining seven years: $3 million in 2004, $6 million each in 2005, 2006 and 2010, $7 million apiece in 2007 and 2009 and $8 million in 2008. In addition, the Rangers will pay the $24 million remaining in deferred money from the original contract, with the interest rate lowered from 3 percent to 1.75 percent.
All the deferred money owed by Texas -- $36 million, including salaries from 2001-03 -- will be converted to an assignment bonus, which makes the money guaranteed against a strike or lockout. The payout schedule will be pushed back to 2016-25 from 2011-20.
In exchange for the alterations, which devalue the present-day value of the contract by $5 million, Rodriguez will receive a hotel suite on road trips, have the right to link his Web site to the Yankees' site and get a guarantee that the deferred money won't be wiped out by a work stoppage.