Material boy meets Material Girl

It makes sense for a man who likes to be known as A-Rod to be dating Madonna, even if the singer herself vehemently denies it. After all, their egos would be cooing whatever the state of their libidos or their marriages.

A-Rod is Alexander Emmanuel Rodriguez (left), born in 1975 to Dominican immigrant parents in the Hispanic enclave of Washington Heights, north of Harlem. Few people beyond the USA know him because he is a baseball star and baseball is the 'American pastime'. But he is equivalent to a top soccer player, both in money and manners.

He cut his teeth on Dubya Bush's Texas Rangers and then went back to his home town to sign with the greatest team of them all, the New York Yankees - the 'Bronx Bombers'. That deal is worth $275m over ten years with $30m if he breaks the record for home runs.
 
There is no doubt that A-Rod is a terrific baseball player. But New York has been wondering for a while whether it likes him, even before his wife Cynthia filed divorce papers in Miami on Monday, naming Madonna as one of the other women. A-Rod’s ego is big enough to cope: "When people write bad things about me, I don’t know if it’s because I'm good looking, I'm bi-racial, I make the most money or because I'm on the most popular team."

It might be because he flaunts it without decorum. A-Rod and Madonna are both trying to deny an affair said to have begun with the Material Girl cheering from the Rodriguez box at Yankee Stadium. Cynthia did a bunk from their mega-buck flat on the Upper East Side, taking their two young daughters with her. She went to Paris to stay with rock star Lenny Kravitz. Madonna posed for photographs with hubby Guy Ritchie, perhaps on the advice of her lawyer because she has more money than him and she wants to keep the sheets clean if she does have a divorce looming.

The glossy gossip magazine US Weekly insists it has the goods, tracking A-Rod to Madonna's pad for late-night trysts. Up to now, he has preferred strippers. 'A-Rod Hits a Strip-Joint with Toronto Babe' was the big end-of-season headline in the New York Post last year. The 'Toronto babe' was actually a stripper he had already picked up in Las Vegas. A-Rod likes to head for the strip joints post-game and exchange telephone numbers with the talent. Then he gets his photo taken with the babe on his arm.

Sympathies have gone to Cynthia. When A-Rod arrived at Yankee Stadium he was billed as heaven-sent partner to fellow bi-racial Hispanic beauty Derek Jeter. They soon fell out. Jeter signs autographs for kids, never boasts, and is a bachelor who dates stars like Mariah Carey and, maybe, Scarlett Johansson.
 
The Yankees ended a winning streak as A-Rod stepped up to the plate and that has gone down badly. He has been labelled 'the Cooler' - for the player whose selfishness cools the chances of victory.

The word is that A-Rod wants to follow beloved Yankee Joe DiMaggio, who married Marilyn Monroe, with the conquest of the American uber-blonde. Fuggetaboutit, A-Rod.  As any Yankee fan can tell you: you don't have the class. And Madonna ain't no Monroe. ·