Mark Teixeira had a well-decorated professional baseball career in the MLB. In his 14 years in the league, Teixeira played as first baseman for four teams, but his best memories are of his time with the New York Yankees, which he led to the 2009 World Championship title. His name has gone down in history as one of the most productive players the MLB has ever seen.
The three-time All-Star and five-time Golden Glove award winner officially retired on October 2, 2016. The home run of his career was 409 when he became the fifth switch-hitter to achieve this feat in MLB history. Like most professional athletes, Teixeira became a sports analyst shortly after his retirement.
Mark Teixeira Biography (Age)
On April 11, 1980, Teixeira was born Mark Charles Teixeira. Although he was born in Annapolis, Maryland, his parents Margaret Canterna and John Teixeira came to raise him in Severna Park, Maryland. His baseball career began during his time at Mount Saint Joseph High School.
Teixeira was so good at baseball that the Boston Red Sox called him up right after high school, but he turned it down and preferred to play college football at Georgia Tech instead. As a college player at the university, Mark Teixeira won the Dick Howser Trophy, which was awarded to the National College Baseball Player of the Year.
And then came the MLB Draft 2001, where Mark Teixeira was to be voted fifth overall by the Texas Rangers. In 2007, Teixeira left the Rangers to join the Atlanta Braves where he was to play for only one season, 2008/2009. During his time with the Rangers, Teixeira won two Silver Slugger Awards and was named All-Star Team in 2005.
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Mark only had one season with the Braves and then a short time with the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim before the New York Yankees came with a big offer in 2009. Mark accepted the offer and enjoyed the most successful season of his career when he won the 2009 World Series.
From then on, Mark’s career was plagued by injuries, including a wrist injury from 2012 that required surgery. In 2016, at the end of his major contract with the Yankees, Mark Teixeira ended his career by hanging up his hat and gloves forever.
Salary
Mark Teixeira earned enormously in his baseball career. His first contract with the Texas Rangers, which was signed in 2001, was worth $9.5 million over 4 years. He later received a two-year contract worth $15.98 million, which kept him on the side until 2007. For the 2008 season, the Braves signed a one-year contract with him for $12.5 million.
Mark signed his largest contract by December 2008, an eight-year $180 million contract with the Yankees that included a signing bonus of $5 million. The contract earned him an average annual salary of $22.5 million. In 2016, his final year of the contract, he made it to the Forbes list of the world’s highest-paid athletes in 74th place with an annual income of $23 million, half a million of which came from his sponsorship contracts with Nike, Rawlings, Steiner Sports, and others.
Family, Wife
Mark Teixeira is married to Leigh Teixeira (née Williams). The couple met during their college years at Georgia Tech. Leigh was born in Georgia and attended high school in Georgia. After graduating from college, Mark married Leigh on December 7, 2002, and since then the couple has remained inseparable and has supported each other over the years. They have given the public no reason to believe that their union is not going smoothly.
Their family has three children, sons Jack Gordan and William Charles, and daughter Addison Leigh. The family has since settled in Greenwich, Connecticut. Mark and his wife are very involved in the charitable sector. In 2006 they established the Mark Teixeira Charitable Fund. The fund supported 6 scholarships in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
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Other Facts About Mark Teixeira
– Mark Teixeira stands at a height of 1.91 m (6 feet 3 inches).
– He is of mixed ethnic origin: South American, English, Portuguese on his father’s side and Italian on his mother’s side.
– Teixeira used money from his very first professional contract to award a scholarship to high school in honor of his friend who died in a car accident.
– He is a devout Catholic and speaks regularly about his faith.
– His hobbies include fishing, hunting, golf, and reading.
– As a movie freak, Teixeira loves to be entertained and regularly enjoys Broadway theater. His favorite production is Les Misérables.
– On December 2, 2015, a few days before his 13th wedding anniversary, Mark Teixeira lost his mother.
– Mark Teixeira is a board member of several non-profit organizations, including DREAM (formerly Harlem RBI), the Emerald Corridor Foundation, and the Greenwich International Film Festival.
– During the 2016 US presidential election, Mark Teixeira supported Marco Rubio.