(Writing and reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis)
If tabloid rumors are to be believed,  baseball star Alex Rodriguez and pop diva Madonna have been spending a lot of time together, flying around the  country, planning to buy an apartment together and generally getting very up close and personal since their recent twin divorces.

But Rodriguez, 33, is not playing ball with all that talk.  After weeks of  silence about their  relationship,  the sports star  is trying to dispel talk of romance with Madonna, 50.

“We’re friends — that’s it,” Rodriguez told People magazine.
    
Rodriguez’s wife, Cynthia, filed for divorce in July, citing the slugger’s alleged infidelities following news reports that suggested Rodriguez and Madonna were romantically involved.
    
At the time, Madonna was still married to British film director Guy Ritchie.  Since then, the couple went through a lightning-fast divorce that was completed last month.

 “I can tell you this,” Rodriguez told People,  “I have never been on a plane with her.”

 ”I’ve been to two [of her] concerts, yet I’ve read that I went to 20. I’ve also read that we were buying an apartment together. That is absolutely ridiculous and not true.”

 When pressed on how much time they have spent together, and whether he had ever stayed the night at Madonna’s home, Rodriguez laughed: “If I answered every rumor, we’d be here for three weeks.”

In the two high-profile divorces captivating New York, model Christie Brinkley has this advice for Cynthia Rodriguez, wife of Yankees baseball star Alex “A-Rod” Rodriguez: hire my lawyer.

It was the fourth day in the widely-watched divorce and child custody trial between Brinkley, 54, and Peter Cook, 49. Psychiatrist Dr. Stephen Herman tesitifed that Brinkley should get custody of their two kids – 13-year-old Jack and 10-year-old Sailor Lee — because Cook displayed poor judgment when he engaged in an extra-marital affair with a teenager, according to various news reports.

But Herman took Brinkley to task, too, for her parenting and for her choices in men — she’s had three other husbands before Cook, including singer Billy Joel.

Still, in a news conference after Tuesday’s court proceedings, Brinkley smiled when she was asked for a reaction to Herman’s determination on custody. ”I hope that the judge agrees with him (Herman). I just have to wait for him to make his decision.” Asked later if she had advice for Cynthia Rodriguez, Brinkley smiled again and said: “Yes, yes. I think that the best advice I could give Ms. Rodriguez is to hire Bob Cohen,” who is Brinkley’s lawyer. 

One day earlier, Cynthia Rodriguez filed for divorce from her husband citing “extra marital affairs and other marital misconduct.” That’s them in happier days in the picture at left.

In New York, where Rodriguez is a major sports star, news reports circulated last week that the professional baseball player was having an affair with pop singer Madonna, who is married to film director Guy Ritchie. On Sunday this week, Madonna strongly denied those rumors.