A-Rod to skip Yanks' spring opener, make debut Wednesday

Alex Rodriguez will skip the New York Yankees' exhibition opener against Philadelphia in Clearwater and is slated to make his spring training debut at Steinbrenner Field on Wednesday.

A-Rod is back from a season-long suspension for violations of baseball's drug agreement and labor contract,

Yankees manager Joe Girardi intends to give Rodriguez two or three at-bats as a designated hitter in New York's first home exhibition game this year.

"I know it's a tall order," Girardi said Monday. "He's 39 1/2 years old, two hip surgeries. But I don't ever count anybody out. We have to see where he is in about four weeks and how he's doing. That's the important thing."

Rodriguez went 0 for 2 as a DH in an intrasquad game Monday. Hitting off a pitching machine, he grounded to third on the second pitch and flied out to short right on the first pitch. The three-time AL MVP has not played a full season since 2007 because of the suspension, operations on both hips and other injuries. He did not speak with reporters after the intrasquad game and is not on the travel roster for Tuesday's game across Tampa Bay.

"I think his work, his approach is the same as it used to be," Girardi said. "He wants to get his work in. That's what I've seen him doing."

Monday's game was played before about 100 fans in mostly empty Steinbrenner Field. Rodriguez spent most the game in a chair next to the first-base dugout wearing a helmet and occasionally swinging a bat as he awaited his next plate appearance. He received cheers walking to the plate from the small gathering.

"I think you'll look at the progress he's making from day to day and week to week," Girardi said. "How his at-bats look day 10 opposed to day one."

Girardi and general manager Brian Cashman say Chase Headley will be their starting third baseman and Rodriguez will compete for at-bats at designated hitter. Rodriguez has been working out at third and first base, and could see limited time at both corner infield spots.

"I think he has come into camp and tried just to fit in, and be one of the guys, which is fairly normal for him," Girardi said. "Guys are comfortable being around him. Makes people laugh. Kind of what he does."

Adam Warren is to start for the Yankees on Tuesday. Position players making the trip to Clearwater include outfielders Jacoby Ellsbury, Brett Gardner and Chris Young.

Cubs expect "dusty' year amid Wrigley Field renovations

When the Chicago Cubs open their season at Wrigley Field next month, players and fans alike may feel a bit like a homeowner who lives in a house where workers are tearing apart the kitchen.

Members of the media were led on a tour Monday of the bowels of the Major League Baseball's second-oldest ballpark, which has become a forest of beams and pipes on a dirt floor amid a massive renovation. Many of the steel girders that will support the ballpark's huge new video board are still lying on the ground beyond the left-field wall because record cold in February made it difficult for steel workers to do their job.

But Cubs officials said the concourse will be open for business and the video board will be working come the team's opening day game on April 5 against the St. Louis Cardinals.

To get everything done, Cubs officials will ask the city for permission to work around the clock, said Crane Kenney, the team's president of business operations.

And while the team has said for weeks that the bleachers won't be open until May, on Monday officials said that only the left field and center field bleachers will open in May. The right-field bleachers won't be open until June, officials said Monday.

"It is going to be a little dusty and a little dirty this year," Kenney said.

On Monday, Wrigley looked a bit like those old grainy photographs of the ballpark as it was being built in 1914. But unlike 1914 when the whole park cost $250,000 to build, what's happening now is the first phase of a project that will cost $375 million to renovate the stadium itself and a total of $575 million when a nearby hotel, plaza and office complex are complete.