Wife of baseball star linked to Madonna files for divorce

Top US baseball player Alex Rodriguez’s wife filed for divorce today just days after the New York Yankees star was romantically linked to Madonna.

Rodriguez’s wife called her husband an adulterer who “emotionally abandoned his wife and children” in the filing to Miami-Dade County Family Court.

“The marriage of the parties is irretrievably broken because of the husband’s extramarital affairs and other marital misconduct,” according to Mrs Rodriguez’s divorce petition.

The New York Yankees star has refused to comment on his relationship with the pop singer Madonna, who denied any romantic involvement in a statement posted yesterday on people.com.

“The petitioner has exhausted every effort to salvage the marriage of the parties,” Mrs Rodriguez said in the filing. “However, Alex has emotionally abandoned his wife and children and has left her with no choice but to divorce him.”

The couple, who married in November 2002, have a six-bedroom house in the Miami suburb of Coral Gables.

Mrs Rodriguez has asked for primary custody of their two children, as well as child support and alimony.

Their two daughters are Natasha Alexander, three, and two-month-old Ella Alexander.

The filing comes just days after the baseball star was linked to Madonna in various media outlets.

Mrs Rodriguez later visited the Paris home of rocker Lenny Kravitz, who said she came to France to escape the media frenzy in New York and denied anything improper.

Cynthia Rodriguez’s lawyer, Maurice Kutner, declined to elaborate on the filing, which does not mention Madonna or any other women by name.

“Cynthia has made it very clear to me that she wants to take the high road and protect her children and herself. There’s no vindictiveness here,” Mr Kutner said. “She wants to resolve the issues between Alex and herself in an amicable fashion.”

Rodriguez is in the first season of a $275m (€175.5m), 10-year contract with the Yankees.

Yesterday, Madonna insisted she was not splitting from her husband, British film maker Guy Ritchie.

“My husband and I are not planning on getting a divorce. I know Alex Rodriguez through Guy Oseary, who manages both of us.

“I brought my kids to a Yankee game. I am not romantically involved in any way with Alex Rodriguez,” she said.

“I have nothing to do with the state of his marriage or what spiritual path he may choose to study,” the statement continued, apparently referring to reports that the singer had introduced the sportsman to the form of Jewish mysticism known as Kabbalah that she practises.