Now, if you've read Tabloided for any length of time, you know that I'm going to have some biases about this story going in. After all, I am a tried-and-true Red Sox fan, which makes me almost genetically disposed to despise Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez. On the other hand, I also grew up in the 1980s and therefore find myself always rationalizing anything the pop diva does. But this time? Really, Madonna — A-Rod?

This story has been bubbling up in the gossip pages over the past week, but both tabs give it front-page prominence today. The big news today comes from Us Weekly's website, which reports that A-Rod has been visiting Madonna in her Upper West Side apartment when his schedule permits. One source tells the mag, "All the doormen are talking."

The Post links the two stars together through two things: they share an agent (Guy Oseary) and apparently A-Rod has a burgeoning interest in kabbalah. (You may know it as the non-Scientology "celebrity" religion based on Jewish mysticism and claims Madge, Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher as followers.) The paper has fun with this, featuring a list of "What kabbalah has to offer A-Rod:" which includes, "If it helps him hit better in the clutch, we say mazel tov! and "The numeric teachings of kabbalah will help A-Rod count the number of commandments he's broken."

The Daily News (they're the winners with the front-page headline today, by the way with "Did A-Rod get to first base?") follows the story of how Rodriguez and Madonna met, including a timeline of "when their paths crossed." Apparently the two first met last December at a party for Madonna's husband Guy Ritchie's movie Revolver, and after hanging out together, Rodriguez hired Oseary as his manager. The speculation about the two ramped up almost two weeks ago, when Madonna and Oseary took her two sons to a Yankees game and she sat in Rodriguez's box seats.The most egregious tidbit in all this rumor and speculation about the two is that A-Rod went to visit Madonna right after his wife Cynthia gave brith to their second child.

Not only does the News win with the headline (although the Post's "squeeze play" hed was good too and they did have the great smirking A-Rod photo), they win for the last two paragraphs of their Madonna/A-Rod piece where they get Jose Canseco to comment. Yeah, Canseco will talk to anyone willing to give him some publicity, but bringing him into the story to snark on the pairing is pretty great. It's kind of relevant, as Madonna and Canseco briefly dated in the 1990s and Canseco hates A-Rod more than almost any Red Sox fan does. His comment, and the context provided by the Daily News:

In his memoir "Juiced," Canseco devotes a chapter to his brief romance with the singer in 1991. In his followup, "Vindicated," he claimed Rodriguez "was jonesing" for his second wife, Jessica.

Asked about a Rodriguez-Madonna merger yesterday, Canseco sniped, "That's Alex. That's what he does. He goes after people's wives. I guess he's trying to follow in my footsteps now with Madonna."

Talk about an ax to grind!