A-Rod New Love

A newspaper in the Dominican Republic reports that New York Yankees slugger Alex Rodriguez has found the Apollonia of his eye. As Diario Libre puts it, "A-Rod is stuck on a young girl from Santiago."

That's not a line from "West Side Story," but the scene is reminiscent of Al Pacino's Michael Corleone character hiding out in Italy during "The Godfather," only to fall in love with a woman from his father's hometown in Sicily named Apollonia Vitelli.

While he doesn't have a price on his head literally, A-Rod has been in living in a recurring semi-exile while he rehabs his surgically repaired hip and weathers the latest PED trouble coming from the Biogenesis clinic in Miami. And that stuff about his charity. Rodriguez did poke his head out on opening day to be with his team at Yankee Stadium, but he otherwise has stayed in the shadows.

But, as usually is the case with Rodriguez, he didn't keep his profile low enough. The media found him in the old country:

    [He] spent practically all day last Saturday together with his new love, which, according to Diario Libre sources, is Rebeca Yunen Finke, 24, an honors graduate in Business Administration from PUCMM.

That's why they say A-Rod can go "From Mr. 305 (Dade County) to Mr. Worldwide." Oh, maybe they mean Pitbull:

Rodriguez has dated the likes of Torrie Wilson, Cameron Diaz, Kate Hudson and Madonna, but Ms. Yunen Finke isn't (or, wasn't) a famous person. And A-Rod apparently went about courting the young lady the correct way (like Michael did with Apollonia's father):

    The person who picked up A-Rod at the Cibao Airport in a limousine was said to be the young lady's father, who took him to the Gran Almirante Hotel, where he took the presidential suite. He did not register in his own name.

    The ballplayer arrived in his Gulfstream IV, an airplane worth US$38 million, last Friday at 8:09 p.m., together with a friend. He asked the authorities at the terminal to exercise maximum discretion regarding his arrival and departure.

(The sentence about how much A-Rod's plane is worth must have been written by Darren Rovell.) As for A-Rod getting any "discretion" from terminal authorities as to his arrival time, well, at least "8:09 p.m." isn't down to the second.

This is a good sign for A-Rod — one that he is settling down at age 37. The Stew is predicting big things for the couple and a big comeback on the field for Rodriguez in the second half of the season.