The last thing Alex Rodriguez needs right now is the opt-out clause in his contract. If he were smart, he would ask the Yankees to amend the contract and delete the clause from it.

Yes, he could simply not exercise the clause at the end of the season -- the seventh in a 10-year deal -- but the clause would still be there, looming.

No, A-Rod has to get rid of the clause; otherwise it will plague him for the entire season, and he doesn't need that distraction. He has enough potential problems that he can't do anything about.

His agent, Scott Boras, of course, would not allow him to opt out of the opt-out. That's Boras's baby. He used it this winter to get J. D. Drew out of the three years he had remaining on his contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers and to gain a contract with Boston for $70 million, more than twice the $33 million the Dodgers would have owed him.

Baseball officials and executives of other clubs have suspected that the Red Sox tampered with Drew, letting Boras know that if Drew walked away from the Dodgers, more money was awaiting him.

When I reported these suspicions earlier this winter, Boras was irate, feeling that the accusation belittled his ability to analyze the free-agent market and figure out that Drew would be better off financially by becoming a free agent.

The Dodgers ultimately chose not to file a tampering charge with the commissioner's office.

One general manager joked that the Dodgers didn't want to file a complaint because they were afraid they'd get Drew back. But a Major League Baseball official who talked about the possible tampering last week was not joking, saying the Dodgers were furious, spoke to the commissioner's office and discussed filing a complaint. The official didn't want his name used because no complaint was filed.

All right, that was Drew, this is Rodriguez. Would some club get word to Boras that if Rodriguez left the Yankees at the end of the season, it would guarantee more than $81 million for the next three years?

Rodriguez's salary for the last three years of his $252 million contract is $27 million a year. It's highly unlikely that anyone would pay Rodriguez a higher salary than that no matter how lush the market is and how scarce productive power hitters are.

Maybe Tom Hicks, the Texas Rangers owner who foolishly gave A-Rod his record contract six years ago, would like another shot at him. On second thought, not even Hicks could be that economically irresponsible.

Unfortunately for Rodriguez, he's in a difficult position. He doesn't want to leave the Yankees, but he can't state flatly that he's not going anywhere eight months from now. That's not the way Boras plays the game.

When Boras asked Hicks for the opt-out clause, it was intended for use as a bargaining tool to get an extension to Rodriguez's lavish 10-year deal. Before Boras had Drew bid adieu to the Dodgers, he offered them an opportunity to keep Drew with an extension. The Dodgers laughed, which if not for the circumstances might have been an impolite way of saying no.

The Yankees know Boras's game, and they may actually be amenable to an extension, though not at $27 million a year. The closest any player has come to that figure since Rodriguez signed his contract is $20 million a year.

At a session with reporters at the Yankees' spring training camp in Tampa, Fla., yesterday, Rodriguez said repeatedly, ''I want to be a Yankee my whole career.'' But he declined to say that he wouldn't use the opt-out clause.

''The option is there for a reason,'' he said, without saying what the reason was. ''I'm not going to rewrite the contract today.''

But it would be in his best interests to rewrite it and take out the opt-out clause. As long as it's there, Rodriguez will be asked about it continuously. He can say today he won't decide about the clause until after the season, and, guaranteed, he will be asked about it again tomorrow. He doesn't need that, and neither do the Yankees.

Rodriguez has enough distractions without those daily questions. He said yesterday that he liked his contract and liked being the highest-paid player, but he has paid a huge price for his special status.

A player who earns his kind of salary is not supposed to make outs and is not supposed to make errors, as far as fans are concerned. Each time he does make an out or an error, he is a target of the fans' displeasure. Last year became brutal for him. He struck out more often and committed errors more often than in any previous season, eliciting more boos than his 35 home runs and 121 runs batted in produced in cheers.

His dismal postseason performance was injury enough, then his manager added insult by dropping him to eighth in the batting order in the final playoff game.

Rodriguez will have a difficult enough time getting off to a strong start this year to keep the target on his back from growing larger. He doesn't have to hear Yankee Stadium fans chant, ''Opt out, opt out, opt out.''

Photo: Alex Rodriguez said he wanted to end his career with the Yankees, but declined to say he would not use an opt-out clause in his contract. (Photo by Robert F. Bukaty/Associated Press)