Mike Celizic

Alex Rodriguez has finally hit on the formula for success: get it on with Madonna.

The tabloid media are acting as if A-Rod has something to be ashamed of, but they've got it all wrong. Even if there is a sex tape of him and Madonna, it's not going to hurt him.

That's because you never lose by being seen coming out of Madonna's apartment. For people in the entertainment industry, it's the equivalent of a parish priest having a lengthy private audience with the Pope. When you come out, your stock goes up.

Jose Canseco was a Popeye-esque slugger until paparazzi on the Madonna beat spotted him exiting chez Femme Materiel. Dennis Rodman was a punk who died his hair until Madonna asked him to come up and see her sometime. And now it's A-Rod who's collecting the benefits.

The gossip writers are having a wonderful time recounting what they want us to think are indiscretions and misfortunes, but where's the downside of his Page 6 summer?

His teammates tolerate him but don't like him. Not one showed up at the big All-Star break party he threw at Jay-Zs 40-40 Club. Even the prospect of free drinks couldn't get them to hang with him.

They think he's a distraction, but it's not one that shows on the field. While this whole Madonna frenzy has been going on, the team is actually playing better than it has all year and the Yankees are gnawing away at the lead the Red Sox and Rays have held on them all summer.

And A-Rod himself is having another great season. 

You'll notice he hasn't once whined about all the attention he's getting. He hasn't even complained about the coverage his disintegrating marriage is getting.

There's a reason for that: he loves it. The man told his agent to take a hike last year when it looked as if Scott Boras was going to negotiate him out of the Big Apple. He said it was because he loves New York. It's really because he loves the attention.

The Yankees don't allow long hair or any facial shrubbery other than a neatly trimmed mustache. But A-Rod does everything the rules allow to make sure people see him. He hauls his pants up to his knees for that eye-catching high-stocking look. He wears number 13, always an attention-getting device. For the All-Star game, he came out on the field in white shoes just in case you had a hard time spotting him.

He's really beyond embarrassment, which may be a negative for most of us, but is an asset in his business. He gets caught with a pneumatic babe in Toronto, he doesn't say a word. He's connected to Madonna and he's positively delighted because he's not only on the back page of the tabloids, but the front page as well.

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The fans certainly don't care. Fans get on players for using drugs, especially performance-enhancers. But I can't remember the last one who got booed for cheating on his wife, especially when the cheating leads to a divorce and he starts planting stories about what an evil person his soon-to-be-ex is.

You do those things as a politician and they cost you your job. You do it as a sports superstar and you get a new endorsement contract. Companies are eager to get him to endorse their products in the hope that schlumps who make their purchases based on endorsements will think wearing his clothing will get them into Madonna's apartment, too, and not as part of the carpet-cleaning crew.

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He has to know this, and he has to be smiling at himself in the mirror every morning, admiring the face that made Madonna's heart go pitter-pat. They're a perfect match, too, a meeting of self-obsessed minds.

She's also a good role model for him. Madonna has made a career of manufacturing moral outrage, and not one of her affairs, videos, books, costumes or intentionally blasphemous stage acts has done anything but make her more money.

There's a lesson here. It is that if you're going to fool around, go for the platinum standard. Do it large. Make sure it makes all the papers. Get tongues wagging.

And rake in the bucks.

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