No lock in the Bronx

Admit it. Whether it was stuffed in your mailbox or dangling off the rack, the cover of this week's Sports Illustrated made you sick.

Nauseous.

There's Alex Rodriguez wearing pinstripes. Gloating. Smiling.

Silently pouring rancid tobacco juice into the sores of the poor, the meek, the Red Sox.

The best player in baseball going to the richest team in baseball?

What next?

Yao Ming grows five inches? Donald Trump trips over a lonesome $100 bill?

Florida gets four more months of summer?

A-Rod invading the Big Apple will give the Yankees the most formidable lineup this side of Ruth and Gehrig, no doubt.

But, are the Yankees are lock to win their elusive 27th world title?

Nope. Heck, these guys aren't even a lock to win their division, which they have done every year since 1998.

Suddenly, it seems that everyone has forgotten about Boston and its pitching staff, and that includes John Henry, whose sour grapes would go over big in Napa Valley.

The rotation is front-ended by a formidable trio - Pedro Martinez, Curt Schilling and Derek Lowe.

A hanging knuckler to Aaron Boone cost Tim Wakefield last year's ALCS MVP Award -- and this guy is this team's fourth-best.

Schilling is perhaps the best money pitcher in baseball (see the 1993 and 2001 World Series) while Lowe proved to everyone last summer that 2002 was no fluke.

Martinez has a tendency to fizzle, but you can't argue with his wins and strikeouts, and especially his ERA, a modern marvel, especially with the amount of balls and biceps that are juiced up.

The addition of Keith Foulke gives the BoSox what they sorely lacked last season -- a big-time, true-blue closer.

Is he Mariano Rivera?

No. But, Vladamir Guerrero isn't Barry Bonds, and I'd still take him in a pinch.

The Yankees, meanwhile, enter the spring with their creakiest rotation since the Stump Merrill era.

Andy Pettitte, Roger Clemens and David Wells proved they can pitch in New York and pitch into October.

Javier Vasquez and Jose Contreras have not.

Jon Leiber and Kevin Brown?

Instead of a number, just plant a big IF on each one's back.

For all his consistency and craftiness, Mike Mussina has never won 20 games.

This team may score six runs a night. And it may have to, because there is a very good chance they'll be giving up five.

Remember, these are the Yankees. And come July 31, if there's a lefty on the market, Boss George will rattle some chains and Brian Cashman will dial some numbers.

However, don't fold up your tent, Bomber Bashers, just because Alex Rodriguez decided to trade the south for the north and shortstop for third.

These Yankees will be a tough out.

They won't be a sure thing.