By LEON CARTER
New York Daily News

The first call came to my cell phone early Saturday morning on Feb. 14. On the other end was Teri Thompson, the Daily News Sunday sports editor. "Our baseball folks are checking into these A-Rod-to-Yankee rumors and Madden thinks there's something to them," she says.

Bill Madden is our national baseball columnist. If the Yankees are going to get Alex Rodriquez and make this a Valentine's Day Yankees fans won't ever forget, Madden will be among the first to know.

As I got my papers at a Manhattan newsstand on that cool Saturday morning, I overheard a man say as he put down his money on the counter: "Yankees may get A-Rod."

"Really?" the woman behind the counter said. She and many New Yorkers were shocked that baseball's best player could be coming to baseball's most storied franchise. Sports talk radio in New York was hot with A-Rod talk. Will Derek Jeter move to third and let A-Rod play short? Can Jeter play third? Can A-Rod play third? Who are the Yankees giving up in the deal?

Readers called our offices for updates throughout the day. Some thought it was a joke. After all, the Red Sox had tried for a month to get A-Rod to Boston, but the Sox couldn't close the deal. How could the Yankees — the Evil Empire as the Red Sox brass likes to call them — get a deal done after only a few days of talks?

But every hour it became more and more a certainty that A-Rod could land in the Bronx. Teri called again around noon and said all hands were on deck. All our baseball writers, including columnists Mike Lupica, John Harper and Madden, were on the story. Our first deadline was 3 p.m. I arrived at the Daily News office mid-afternoon as Teri was closing our early Sunday edition with the latest A-Rod news. That edition, which hits Manhattan streets around 6 p.m. on Saturday, said second baseman Alfonzo Soriano was involved in the deal for A-Rod.

By 3:15 p.m., our A-Rod planning meeting was in progress. Even though the deal was two days away before becoming official, we assumed that it was going to happen. Call it the George Steinbrenner Effect. We've learned over the years that once the Yankees target someone, they usually get him. Whether it's Jason Giambi, Mike Mussina, Jose Contreras (remember the fight with the Red Sox over him?), Kevin Brown, Javier Vazquez, Gary Sheffield or Kenny Lofton, the Yankees normally get their man.

And what better way for Steinbrenner to stick it to the Red Sox than to get the guy Boston tried so hard to get.

According to the Yankees, A-Rod didn't enter the picture until third baseman Aaron Boone (Game 7 ALCS/Boston killer) tore ligaments in his knee. The Yankees asked A-Rod if he would move from shortstop to third. He agreed and a blockbuster deal was in the making.

At our A-Rod planning meeting, calls were made to Madden, Lupica, Anthony McCarron (beat writer) and deputy sports editor Adam Berkowitz. The message to the staff was clear: Claim the A-Rod story! Over the next few days we wanted to go big like we've never gone with a mega-star signing by a New York team. We wanted our readers to know all there is to know about A-Rod.

How good is he? What makes him the best player in the game? How does he stack up against Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle and Joe DiMaggio? With him in the lineup, will the 2004 Yankees be the modern day version of Murderer's Row. How many homers will he hit in Yankee Stadium?

We also wanted to know about his wife, his brother, his family, his clothes, his puppy (and we got all of that). We wanted the earliest photo we could find of A-Rod (we found one of A-Rod at age 10). What about his bedroom? Yes, we got a shot of the bed he slept in as a child. The room now looks like a museum and it's filled with trophies. What does A-Rod eat? Where does he eat when he comes to New York?

The A-Rod planning meeting was very productive. The staff began working on stories. If the deal fell apart, oh well. We would laugh, curse and move on. But every hour that went by on that Saturday, our sources were certain that A-Rod was coming to the Bronx. By late Saturday, the Rangers and Yankees had an agreement in place. Sunday's paper had A-Rod splashed across the front and back pages.

The front page headline: A-BOMB. Subhead: Yanks stun baseball world, make deal for Alex Rodriguez. The back page: TAKE THAT, BOSOX. Subhead: Yanks agree to a blockbuster.

The deal was now in commissioner Bud Selig's hands. He approved it on Monday and Tuesday's paper is the one I'm most proudest of. We produced a 17-page A-Rod special. Competition is everything in New York and the most pages any other New York paper had on that day were four. Besides the news of the day (Selig signing off on the deal), we plotted A-Rod homers in Yankee Stadium. We put him in the Yankee lineup and compared it to the Murder's Row lineup with Ruth and Gehrig. We also looked at his marketing appeal and how it compares to Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods. The gem of the section was a piece written by John Harper, who went to St. Nicholas Ave on 183rd Street in Washington Heights, where A-Rod was born and Dominicans were beaming with pride.

"It's like New Year's Eve around here," said Miguel Montas, owner of El Nuevo, a restaurant A-Rod always visits or orders from when he's in New York. "You're talking about the Latin Babe Ruth. The Latin people have a message today to George Steinbrenner. Thank you for doing this for us."

Montas, who personally prepared and delivered food to A-Rod in his hotel when he was in town as a Ranger, gave us great stuff on A-Rod's family, his relationship with his father, his love for New York and 183rd Street. This piece, which included great photos from the restaurant, was a home run.

On Wednesday, we sent an army of reporters and photographers to the press conference at Yankee Stadium and produced 16 pages. Every angle was covered, including the guy who carefully brought A-Rod's uniform to the stadium wrapped in plastic. That day's paper also included a souvenir color poster of Jeter and A-Rod.

A-Rod was big news in New York, grabbing the back page six out of the first eight days. Covering A-Rod also was good business. Although numbers can't be revealed, there was a bump in newsstand sales every time A-Rod was on the front or back page. "If he breaks a fingernail, play it up," a masthead honcho told me right before spring training.

And A-Rod got his share of back pages during spring training: his first day in Tampa; his first hit; his first home run; his first turning of a double play; and his first injury (a ball hit him in the face).

Before spring training was over, we had devoted 81 pages alone to A-Rod, including a three-part series called the A-Rod Files in which we took a close look at A-Rod as a person, player and marketer. The veterans at the Daily News say our coverage was unprecedented. In their memory, no other trade got 81 pages in the Daily News. No need to figure out who was in second. A-Rod was so far out in front that it didn't matter who was second.

But there was more. The Yankees opened the season against Tampa in Japan. Games 1 and 2 started at 5 a.m. New York time. We sent four staffers to Japan. We had to cover A-Rod's first official hit as a Yankee, along with Hideki Matsui returning home. I, my valued editors Teri and Adam, and two layout editors and a copy editor were in the office early to produce a 16-page wraparound special. The games ended around 8 a.m. Our deadline was 10. The presses began rolling around 10:30. The specials were at the newsstands by 12:30 in time for the lunch-time crowd. And we came back and did another 16-page special for Game 2. Another proud moment for me and the staff. No other New York paper came close to our effort, although one did update two pages for the rush hour home.

But not all of our readers were happy with our comprehensive coverage of A-Rod and the Yankees, and they let me know it. Here are a few letters:

Josephine Moretti of Stamford, Conn.: "Enough already. A-Rod is not the whole Yankee team. What about Derek Jeter? Is he no longer valuable to the Yankees? It's like he doesn't belong."

Vatovec Ditto of Sayville, N.Y.: "All last week there was nothing but A-Rod. The Yankees should have left him in Texas and brought back Andy, Rocket and Boomer. They won more than 50 games last year. How many game-winning hits did A-Rod have last year?"

Ken Hollenbeck of Endicott, N.Y.: "As a die-hard Knicks and Mets fan, I was enraged when I opened the Feb. 18 Daily News and found almost the entire sports section devoted to the A-Rod deal. Who cares that the Yankees bought themselves another player? Cover all New York teams properly."

Charles Dawson of Brooklyn, who admits that he is a Mets fan: "I am an avid reader of the Daily News for some 40 years. I even have my paper delivered to my home. However, this is about to end. New York is a two baseball sports town, but your coverage is so unbalanced and biased that it has become sickening and frustrating to read."

Ed Waldeck of Long Island, N.Y.: "With all the print and pictures the Yankees get in the Daily News, I would like to know if George Steinbrenner owns the Daily News or if the Daily News owns the Yankees."

The veterans at the Daily News tell me that Yankee fans complained in the mid '80s when the Mets were good and Yankees were not. The Mets got most of the back pages and space, particularly in 1986 when they won the World Series. So these things, the veterans say, go in cycles and they all even themselves out in the end.

Just as the positive A-Rod back pages ended when the Yankees got off to a slow start. After the Yankees dropped their second straight game in Boston on April 18, a frustrated A-Rod was on the back page with the headline: A-BYSMAL. Two days later A-Rod was on the back again with the headline A-MESS following another loss to the Red Sox. The next weekend the Red Sox swept the Yankees in the Bronx. Jeter and A-Rod were booed. The next day after the sweep, our illustrator, Ed Murawinski, produced a terrific back page with Steinbrenner crying dollar signs and asking, "What's wrong with my Yankees." The headline: MONEY BAWL.

After that weekend, the Yankees began to play like the Yankees and won their next seven series. By the second week in May the Yankees were in first place in the AL East, a spot Boston held most of April. The two teams began trading places at the top of the standings by the third week in May. A-Rod was looking more like A-Rod and so were the Yankees. A-Rod will get his share of good and bad back pages. And so will the Mets, who began to play well by the third week in May and even grabbed the back page one day during the weekend A-Rod made his first visit to Texas since the trade.

Just like the veterans say, these things eventually even themselves out — minus the 81 A-Rod pages.