Although Alex Rodriguez played for the Texas Rangers and the Seattle Mariners, the New York Yankees are where most people are familiar with him. From 2004 until his retirement in 2017, he was a Yankee.
Alex Rodriguez Career Income
Alex Rodriguez made just under $475 million in salary, bonuses, and endorsements during the course of his professional career. Even after retiring, Alex has continued to make tens of millions of dollars annually. His overall career earnings as of this writing are just over $650 million.
Alex Rodriguez Early Years
On July 27, 1975, in the New York City neighborhood of Washington Heights, Alexander Emmanuel Rodriguez was born. Victor and Lourdes, his parents, immigrated from the Dominican Republic. Joe and Suzy, from his mother’s first marriage, are his two half-siblings. The family first relocated to Miami, Florida, when Alex was four years old, then to the Dominican Republic. Alex’s father gave him a rubber ball and a plastic bat when he was a child. Little A-Rod would always take the opportunity to work on his swing.
Alex played baseball with pals every day while residing in Miami before joining a youth league team. Alex’s entire existence soon revolved around baseball. As a member of the Boys & Girls Club, he helped his team win the national championship. Growing up, Keith Hernandez, Dale Murphy, and Cal Ripken Jr. were his three favorite athletes. He had the New York Mets as his favorite group.
For his freshman year, Rodriguez attended Christopher Columbus High School in Miami. He changed schools and attended Westminster Christian School, where he played quarterback for the football team and was a star shortstop for the baseball team. He has 90 stolen bases while batting.419 in 100 high school baseball games. In his junior year, Westminster won the high school national championship.
He was also named the Gatorade National Baseball Student-Athlete of the Year and the Junior Player of the Year by USA Baseball. He was a first-team All-American as a senior. Alex was getting a lot of interest from Major League scouts even before he graduated. He was the first high school athlete to ever try out for the American national baseball team in 1993.
Rodriguez was the best baseball prospect in the nation right out of high school. In addition to being drafted to play quarterback for the football team of the Hurricanes, he signed a letter of intent to play baseball at the University of Miami (Florida). He was chosen in the first round of the 1993 amateur draft, but he declined Miami’s scholarship to join the Seattle Mariners instead. He was 17 at the time.
Alex Rodriguez Career
In February 1994, Rodriguez reported to spring training. On July 8, 1994, he made his shortstop starting debut. Since 1900, Alex was only the third shortstop who was 18 years old. Before departing the organization in 2000 to join the Texas Rangers, Alex Rodriguez established numerous records while playing for the Mariners and rose to the position of star player.
Rodriguez was a Ranger from 2001 to 2003. Despite the Rangers finishing last in the AL Western division during this time, he set numerous personal records. A-Rod won the league MVP award while on a club that finished last.
Rodriguez was traded to the Yankees before the 2004 season and changed positions to third baseman because Derek Jeter was the team’s primary shortstop previously.
Rodriguez won the AL MVP award twice while playing for the Yankees, in 2005 and 2007. When he reached 500 home runs in 2007, he did so at the youngest age ever. In 2009, the first season of the new Yankee Stadium, and the year Rodriguez won his lone major championship, the Yankees defeated the Philadelphia Phillies to win the World Series. Injuries to his hip and knee forced Rodriguez to switch to being a designated hitter only toward the conclusion of his career. On August 12, 2016, he participated in his final professional baseball game. In 2017, Rodriguez declared his baseball career over.
Alex Rodriguez Career After Baseball
Rodriguez transitioned into the media when his professional baseball career was over. He has broadcast for Fox Sports 1, made an appearance on Shark Tank, and worked for the ABC News organization. A-Rod joined the Sunday Night Baseball broadcast team, ESPN announced in January 2018.
Alex Rodriguez Controversies
Rodriguez denied using performance-enhancing drugs in a 2007 60 Minutes interview with Katie Couric. He acknowledged using steroids while playing for the Rangers from 2001 to 2003 in February 2009. In 2013, Rodriguez was rehabilitating from a hip injury when he got into a fight with the team’s management about his treatment and for allegedly obtaining performance-enhancing substances as part of the Biogenesis baseball controversy.
He received a 211-game suspension from MLB in August 2013 for his role in the scandal, although he was still allowed to play while contesting the penalty. The first penalty would have been the longest non-lifetime ban in Major League Baseball history if it had been upheld. The punishment was lowered to 162 games during an arbitration hearing, keeping him off the field for the entire 2014 season.
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Alex Rodriguez Individual Life
In 2002, Rodriguez wed Cynthia Scurtis. They met in a Miami gym. Natasha Alexander, their first child, was born on November 18, 2004. Ella Alexander, their second child, was born on April 21, 2008. On July 7, 2008, Cynthia filed for divorce on the basis of her husband’s emotional neglect of her and their children, as well as his adulterous affairs and other marital indiscretions.
In his response, Rodriguez claimed that his marriage was “irretrievably damaged” and asked that any references to his extramarital activities be removed from the court file.
In February 2017, Alex and Jennifer Lopez started dating. A-Rod and JLo declared their engagement in March 2019. Alex is $50 million poorer than Jennifer, who has a net worth of $400 million. They have a total net worth of $750 million as of this writing.
Alex Rodriguez Highlights of Earnings
Alex made $441 million in baseball wages alone over the course of his career. When compared to some of his contemporaries, he “only” made roughly $40 million from sponsorships. In contrast, Derek Jeter retired in 2014 with a total income of $400 million (salary AND endorsements). About $130 million of that $400 million came from Derek’s endorsements. A-Rod was the king of the sponsorship world, but after admitting to using steroids, his most lucrative deals dried up.
He agreed to multiple deals that, at the time, represented the biggest contracts ever made in sports. He had a salary of $33 million at his highest point. His $252 million, ten-year contract with the Texas Rangers in 2000 was the biggest in sports history at the time. The previous record at the time, Kevin Garnett’s $126 million NBA contract, was more than quadrupled by that deal.
In 2007, Rodriguez extended his record for the most lucrative contract in sports by signing a new 10-year, $275 million contract with the Yankees.
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Alex Rodriguez Real Estate
A-Rod received $4.4 million for the sale of his 3,700 square foot, four bedroom, three and a half bathroom property in the Hollywood Hills. In 2014, he acquired the house from Meryl Streep and Don Gummer.
In Coral Gables, Florida, he owns a sizable estate that was built to order.
A-Rod additionally invests in housing complexes in New York. His A-Rod Corp. has joined up with real estate investor and operator Ofer Yardeni of Stonehenge NYC and brokerage guru Adam Modlin to buy apartments and condos of all sizes throughout the city.
For $15.3 million, Alex and Jennifer Lopez purchased a condo on Park Avenue together in 2018. In 2020, this house was sold for $15.75 million.
They paid $6.6 million to acquire Jeremy Piven’s Malibu home in 2019. They then used Joanna Gaines’ assistance to completely refurbish the interior. They sold this house for $6.8 million less than two years later.
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A-Rod and J-Lo spent $1.4 million on a house in Encino, California, in July 2020.
Alex and Jennifer spent $32.5 million in August 2020 for a residence on a single acre of Star Island in Miami.
Alex Rodriguez Net Worth
Alex Rodriguez is a former professional baseball player from the United States who now works as a television analyst.