MIAMI – During a recent interview, Alex “A-Rod” Rodriguez raised controversy in Miami-Dade County.
Rodriguez, 45, a retired Major League Baseball player, earned $455.2 million. He played 22 seasons and his highest single-season salary was $33 million. Jennifer Lopez’s ex-fiancee, a father of two, said Coconut Grove is his “hood.” He said he came from “very modest” beginnings.
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“I grew up right here in the hood. I grew up in a neighborhood called Kendall. It was probably like 99% Latinos ... right down the street you have the University of Miami,” Rodriguez said during The Pivot Podcast’s “A-Rod Opens Up on the Highs & Lows of his Career to Becoming a Business Mogul.”
Rodriguez, who was born in New York to migrants from the Dominican Republic, said his mother had two jobs while he was growing up in Miami-Dade. He said she was a secretary during the day and served tables at night to raise him and his two half-siblings. He signed to the Seattle Mariners when he was 17.
“We had to move every 18 months because they kept raising the rent,” Rodriguez told the podcast’s hosts Ryan Clark, Channing Crowder, and Fred Taylor.