Alexander Emmanuel Rodriguez (born July 27, 1975), nicknamed “A-Rod,” is a former pro baseball shortstop and third baseman from the United States, as well as a businessman and philanthropist.

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Rodriguez was a Major League Baseball (MLB) player for the Seattle Mariners (1994-2000), Texas Rangers (2001-2003), and New York Yankees (2004-2016). Rodriguez is the chairperson and CEO of A-Rod Corp, as well as the Presidente beer chairman. He is a minority owner of the Minnesota Timberwolves of the National Basketball Association (NBA).

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Rodriguez started his professional baseball career as one of the sport’s most highly esteemed prospects and is widely regarded as one of the best players of all time. Rodriguez, who had a career.295 batting average, was the first player in MLB history to have over 600 home runs (696), over 2,000 runs batted in (RBI), over 2,000 runs scored, over 3,000 hits, and over 300 stolen bases.

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He was also a 14-time All-Star, with three American League (AL) MVP Awards, ten Silver Slugger Awards, and two Gold Glove Awards. Rodrguez also holds the lifetime record for grand slams with 25. He signed two of baseball’s most huge contracts. However, he admitted to using prohibited performance-enhancing medications from 2001 to 2003 and was thus suspended for the whole 2014 season.

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Rodriguez was chosen first overall by the Mariners in the 1993 MLB draught, and he made his major league debut the following year at the age of 18. He was the Mariners’ starting shortstop in 1996, when he won the major league batting title and placed second in voting for the AL MVP Award.

His combination of power, quickness, and defence helped him become a club staple, but he left in free agency after the 2000 season to join the Rangers. At the time, his 10-year, $252 million contract was the largest in baseball history. He performed admirably during his three years in Texas, culminating in his first AL MVP Award in 2003, but the team failed to make the playoffs during his time.

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Rodriguez was traded to the Yankees before the 2004 season, where he was moved to a third baseman to facilitate shortstop Derek Jeter. In 2005 and 2007, he was named AL MVP. After opting out of his contract at the end of the 2007 season, he signed a new 10-year, $275 million contract with the Yankees, shattering his own record for the most lucrative contract in sports. In 2007, he became the youngest player in history to hit 500 home runs.

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Rodriguez’s only World Series title came in 2009, when he helped the Yankees defeat the Philadelphia Phillies. He was limited near the conclusion of his career by hip and knee ailments, which forced him to become a designated hitter exclusively. On August 12, 2016, he played his final professional baseball game.

Despite denying using steroids in a 2007 interview, Rodriguez acknowledged to using them in 2009, stating he used them from 2001 to 2003 while playing for the Rangers owing to “an enormous amount of pressure” to perform.

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Rodriguez made news in 2013 while recovering from a hip injury by arguing with team management about his rehabilitation and for reportedly obtaining performance-enhancing drugs as part of the Biogenesis baseball controversy.

Rodriguez was suspended for 211 games by MLB in August 2013 for his role in the affair. Following an arbitration process, the punishment was lowered to 162 games, keeping him out of the game for the full 2014 season.

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Rodriguez became a media celebrity after retiring as a player, working as a Fox Sports 1 broadcaster, a Shark Tank cast member, and an ABC News network member. Rodriguez joined the Sunday Night Baseball broadcast team in January 2018, according to ESPN.

In January 2017, CNBC announced Rodriguez would be the host of the show Back In The Game, where he would help former athletes make a comeback in their personal lives; the first episode debuted on the network in March 2018.

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He married Cynthia Scurtis, a psychology graduate he met in a gym in Miami, Florida, in 2002. Natasha Alexander, the couple’s first child, was born on November 18, 2004. Cynthia gave birth to their second child, Ella Alexander, on April 21, 2008, in Miami, Florida.

Cynthia Rodriguez requested a divorce on July 7, 2008, citing her husband’s “emotional abandonment” of her and their children, as well as “extra marital [sic] affairs and other marital misconduct.” In court documents, Rodriguez stated that the marriage was “irretrievably broken,” but he sought that charges of his “extramarital affairs” be removed from court records. That September, the pair struck an agreement.

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He started dating American singer and actor Jennifer Lopez in February 2017. They announced their engagement in March 2019. Rodriguez praised Lopez in a 2020 interview with Devin Banerjee as “a powerhouse,” adding, “I’ve never met anyone who has the work ethic, the vision, the principles that Jennifer possesses. She does so many things that people call her a triple threat. I call her an octopus threat.” He and Lopez however announced the breakup of their engagement in April 2021.