America's Royal intrigue: The breakup of J-Rod means NYC sports dodged a bullet

Last year, at the height of the pandemic, one golden beacon of hope - bright as a trillion candles - briefly shone upon the netherworld of New York City. 

Alex Rodriguez and Jennifer Lopez - a duo of superheroes so beautiful that it made Wandavision look like a Tony Randall/Jack Klugman sex tape - sought to buy the Mets. 

From our lockdown panic rooms, we could see the fairy tale unfolding. Prince Charmer had awoken Sleeping Booty, they'd done the Super Bowl, they'd marry, they'd merge their gold and adopt a loveable, dewy-eyed street urchin - aka the Mets -and transform that perennially maligned cretinoid organization into a championship franchise. With "J-Rod" ruling the land, celebs would congregate nightly in the owners' box, every game would include a red carpet, and the Mets would conquer Queens, if not Gotham, living happily ever after.

Nope. Didn't happen. 

Somehow, J-Rod lost out in the Mets' auction to a groaty, Homer Simpson-doppelganger, a hedge-fund money creep named Steve Cohen. 

And now, the fairy tale of New York has ended. 

Yesterday, the NY Post - the world's most righteous prosecutor of sexual harassment and election fraud - reported that the 51-year-old Jennifer and the 45-year-old Alex will go on separate journeys. The result is a massive pandemonium of shared finances:

'There have been frantic meetings at A.Rod Corp in the past few days about how to divide their assets,' a source told Page Six. 'Jennifer and Alex were in business together on many business projects and real estate deals.'

Luckily for the two, the fact that they hadn't committed themselves further through marriage should ease the financial separation.

So go the vagaries of baseball and love.  And so did Met fans - and anyone who follows NYC sports - dodge the poison-tipped arrow of Cupid. 

Think about it: If J-Rod owned the Mets, the franchise today would face a financial bloodletting that makes the Bernie Madoff scheme look like the nightly poker game in Nomadland.  With divorce lawyers calling the shots, the Mets would sell off assets such as Jacob DeGrom like sweat-stained My Pillows in a Staten Island garage sale. And once again, the Yankees would win the easy way... by default.

Yes, it would affect the Yankees. For decades now, it's been easy for Yank fans to eye the Mets and snicker. No matter how badly we collapsed - even when Boston won rings - the Mets were generally worse. Now, Cohen has hired veteran baseball executives to slowly build the franchise. He might not be Branch Rickey, but the Yankees can no longer count on being NY's top team merely because we win a wild card. 

By the way, I'm all for this. We often wonder why NYC sports are so collectively wretched. We blame the media, the money, the traffic, even the hookers... but the biggest reason is nepotistic owner families - the Dolans, the Maras, the Tischs, the Steinbrenners - who never experience hunger. It is no coincidence that the Knicks this year - facing an existential threat from the Brooklyn Nets - were forced to improve.

Today, there is a lot of blah-blah-blah happening in Tampa. I was tempted to write about Brett Gardner playing RF. Or how Jay Bruce got another hit. You know what they mean? Nothing. Nothing at all. What matters is whether somebody got hurt. Everything else is YES filler. 

So today, let's step back from the chasm and lift a glass to true love. New York sports fans should celebrate. We got lucky. Steve Cohen might not be the next Jacob Ruppert. But he beats divorce court. And now, the Yankees must win. Losing will actually mean consequences.