New York, Mar 23 : Professional baseball player Alex Rodriguez is said to have dated former madam Kristin Davis, who also provided him with hookers, claim former employees of the call-girl agency.

A-Rod, 33, allegedly exchanged heated e-mails with Davis, a former Manhattan madam who supplied Eliot Spitzer, and also dated him for free after he wooed her with flowers, jewellery and persistence.

"Throughout the years, there were a number of clients that I befriended and it was not uncommon for them to want the women they can''t have whether it be the phone bookers or the madam," the New York Daily News quoted Davis as saying.

"In regard to Alex, all I can say is our paths have definitely crossed personally and professionally," she said.

As per sources, Davis met Rodriguez in June of 2006 in a gym in Philadelphia, shortly after she opened a branch of her call-girl service in the City of Brotherly Love.

When A-Rod met her, Davis did not know who he was, but she admitted to finding him "hot as hell".

"What are you doing tonight?" Davis told a friend the then-married Rodriguez had asked her.

"I said, ''I''m having dinner with my boyfriend. But if you''re looking for someone to hang out with, here''s a number.'' I gave him my agency''s card," she said.

Davis told a friend that later that night, Rodriguez booked a two-hour "date" with one of her girls, who met him at the Four Seasons on Rittenhouse Square.

"He gave his real name," Davis told the friend.

"The next day we found out who Alex Rodriguez was. The girl we sent freaked out. Her father (works for) another Major League Baseball team," she added.

The Yankee slugger soon became a repeat customer of one of Davis'' three Manhattan agencies, two former employees revealed.

Two former agency workers said A-Rod hired prostitutes more than a half-dozen times, often meeting them at the Four Seasons hotel on W. 57th St. (ANI)