A-Rod Opens Up on the Highs & Lows of his Career to Becoming a Business Mogul

FOLLOW THE PIVOT PODCAST: MERCH | https://pivotpodcast.com YOUTUBE | https://www.youtube.com/thepivotpodcast INSTAGRAM | https://instagram.com/thepivot TWITTER | https://twitter.com/thepivot TIKTOK | https://tiktok.com/@thepivot FACEBOOK | https://www.facebook.com/thepivotpodcast FOLLOW HAPPY DAD: https://www.instagram.com/happydad FIND HAPPY DAD: https://www.happydad.com/find Alex Rodriguez joins The Pivot in a revealing and emotional tell-all conversation from growing up to baseball to business to personal relationships and how it impacted the man he is today. The 14x All Star welcomes Ryan, Channing and Fred to his business headquarters in south Florida where a rare and unguarded ARod shares his experiences and the lessons he's learned along the way. "Such a humiliating time in my life... I was too much of a narcissist to think about taking my life, but that's just because I was so damn arrogant," Alex opens up about his PED suspension. Not holding back, Alex breaks down the pain he felt during his suspension and the amount of work he had to do mentally to return to baseball and getting his life back on track. Admittingly, he reveals how the person he was pre suspension is a version of himself he didn't like. Championing his time in therapy and how it saved his life, Alex talks about the dark times and hitting rock bottom. Sharing his personal story, in a heartfelt plea, he reminds anyone listening to this conversation who may be going through rough times to never give up because if he gave up, he wouldn't be sitting here today. Reverting back to his childhood and growing up with his mom and siblings, Alex explains how his roots were developed and the simple things he learned as a child are the same core values he applies in his everyday adult life. Focusing on generational wealth and using his mom and family as motivation, the All Star turned Business Mogul shares how he took a little bit of money and built an empire in his life after baseball. From real estate investment, to technology to owning a NBA team- Alex describes the journey and his mentors along the way, including Magic Johnson, Warren Buffett and business partner Marc Lore, who helped provide a blueprint in business. Turning the focus to family and being a girl dad, Ryan relates to some of the struggles they face walking the line between being a "cool dad" but also a protective one. Alex jokes that his family is very 2022 when he describes how he co-parents with ex-wife Cynthia and her husband while raising their girls together and doing joint family trips. Channing jokingly refers to himself and ARod as dimes and talks to Miami's most eligible bachelor about relationships and what it's like to be Alex Rodriguez trying to date. Channing goes on to address the rumor of Alex having a reputation of being a bad teammate- the guys ask him about playing with Derek Jeter and if any animosity ever existed between the two iconic Yankee teammates. As the conversation is wrapping...the guys are joined by a special guest when Floyd Mayweather drops by and sits down to talk with the guys. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. Good times mean competitions between you and your friends. Like seeing who can throw some pigskin the farthest, or rush the field the fastest. Winner gets an ultra. Because it's not just a superior like beer, it's also giving fans superior access to their favorite sporting events. Superior is worth playing for. Visit michelobultra.com/superioraccess to enter. Enjoy responsibly. Copyright 2026 Anheuser Busch InBev Michelob Ultra Beer, St. Louis, Missouri.

• 0:30Ryan Clark?

  Good to see you, man. Good to talk to you, man. Thank you, brother. Yes, sir.

• 0:35Channing Crowder?

  All right. My man, brother. I believe you, baby. Yes, sir. Thank you so much.

• 0:46Channing Crowder?

  Bro, give me a picture of this. Oh, that's going on the wall. Let me hold it. Hold on. They want holding it cool, you know what I'm saying? I got the point. I got the point, so. Let me get sexy on them.

• 1:00Ryan Clark?

  But you can hold it? You can hold it like you want it?

• 1:01Channing Crowder?

  Do that LeBron like this. When I get these teeth done... Oh, yeah, I'm holding the trophy.

• 1:08Fred Taylor?

  Don't drop it.

• 1:09Channing Crowder?

  Boy, look, I'm holding this shit sometimes.

• 1:10Fred Taylor?

  Tighten up.

• 1:11Channing Crowder?

  Yeah, tighten up.

• 1:11Fred Taylor?

  Next.

• 1:13Channing Crowder?

  One, two, three.

• 1:40Ryan Clark?

  Hey, man, we back on the pivot. Listen, we thank you guys for all the support. Remember to subscribe and like every single episode, and maybe watch it even more than once. That'll be great. We got a very special guest today. Fred's kind of giving it away. He got a little Yankee fit on.

• 1:57Ryan Clark?

  My dog Channing is excited because he says he finally gets to talk to another male diamond, but it's 14-time All-Star. MVP, World Series Champ, now great in his business life, and also analyzing the game, Alex Rodriguez, man, thank you for being here. This is huge for us. We asked Floyd, we had him on. Alright, bro. Like, we need some of your help now. Like, who do you think we need to get on the show? And you were one of the first names that he mentioned. So to be sitting here with you, with the World Series trophy behind you, man, is a surreal experience for all of us. Just tell us a little bit about life, man. What's going on?

• 2:30Alex Rodriguez?

  Well, first of all, it's my pleasure. Thank you for having me. Floyd is a good brother of mine, and nothing makes me happier than to support three brothers doing great things, really conveying the right message to our communities. And I think what you guys are doing is really God's work, because we need to feed our next generation with positivity, good information, whether that's investing, taking care of themselves, health and wellness, and sports, right? And then sports and music has a tendency to bring people together in a world that's so divided today. So I'm just vibing, running my business, having a great time. I have my two daughters that, you know, go to school right down the street here in Coconut Grove, Miami.

• 3:12Alex Rodriguez?

  Kind of my hood, your hood, and it's a great place.

• 3:17Ryan Clark?

  So you are an honorary alum of U M. And when you are that age, you get to commit to one of the more prestigious, especially baseball universities, you know, in the country. What was that experience like for you, playing high school ball and then realizing, you know what? Maybe I don't have to go to college and could go right to the league?

• 3:40Alex Rodriguez?

  You know, let me bring you back a little bit to right here, when I grew up right here in the hood. You know, I grew up in a neighborhood called Kendall. It was probably like 99% Latinos, Cuban, Dominican, Puerto Rican, Colombians. We're all the same, right? We're all Latinos. But I came from very modest beginnings. And my mother had two jobs, right? She was a secretary in the morning, she served tables at night. Single mother with my two siblings, Joe and Suzie. And that's how we survived. And I was at the Boys and Girls Club every morning, every day after school. And what was interesting is, right down the street, you had the University of Miami. And bringing you back, growing up, we didn't have the Marlins. We didn't have a professional baseball team.

• 4:22Alex Rodriguez?

  So growing up in Miami, Ron Frazier and the Hurricanes was everything. It was like our version of the New York Yankees. And I remember as a kid, you know, they had these really old ushers and they were kind of white and slow. And they were like in their eighties and nineties and I'm like, I can get these guys in. So my friends would distract a couple of them, we would jump the fence. And then I would distract a couple and then they would jump the fence. So I kind of got to build up all this debt at the University of Miami. So finally, when I made some coin, uh, I built the baseball field called Alex Rodriguez Baseball Park now. Wow.

• 4:54Channing Crowder?

  Yes, and Alex Rodriguez, but I was actually there for the Florida Amagators. I was there for the Florida UM series. We went and, you know, Florida 2-1. Sorry about that. But I wanted to ask you because like RC was talking about, man, you got, you had an opportunity to have, you had scholarships, college scholarships in baseball and football.

• 5:11Alex Rodriguez?

  Yep, QB.

• 5:13Channing Crowder?

  But you decided to go to the league. You got drafted by the Mariners.

• 5:17Alex Rodriguez?

  Yep.

• 5:17Channing Crowder?

  Ninety-three. Ninety, ninety-three. And then you got a million dollar signing bonus. And it made me connect with you because I got a six, uh, five hundred eighty-eight thousand dollar signing bonus after tax. So my signing bonus was like seven eighty.

• 5:31Alex Rodriguez?

  Okay.

• 5:32Channing Crowder?

  And I got like six hundred. You probably got seven hundred. I was twenty-one and I fucked it all off.

• 5:38Alex Rodriguez?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 5:39Channing Crowder?

  You got million dollars at seventeen years old. How is that? Did your parents manage it? Like, how was it to be seventeen years old? You couldn't even, like, you just started driving and they gave you a million dollars. How was it coming out and being that young?

• 5:51Alex Rodriguez?

  Well, actually, a million three-five. But who's counting? Who's counting? And, and, and, and Channing, the reason why I say that, the reason why I say that is my bro, my, my sister and my mom, my mom and my sister were my agent. At the time, you couldn't have an agent. Because if you officially hired an agent, you'd lose your NCAA eligibility. So my sister is a bull. She's tough. She's Nick's mom. And I was seventeen years old and they were offering me a million dollars and I'm like, I'm good with that. Mom, we're broke. Like, I need to go get this bread and go start my career. My mom's like, hell no. If they don't give you one point five, you're going to the University of Miami. And I said, Mom, are you sure? And my sister's like, yeah.

• 6:35Alex Rodriguez?

  I'm like, I've never met people that are broke that are so damn tough. All right? Like, usually you get tougher when you have leverage. We had no leverage. That, that early on kind of gave me an idea of the backbone that my mother had. And, and the conviction and the confidence in me. And I'll never forget that. It was in this building, before this building, which is a new building, there was a hotel right here. And I negotiated the contract in the wee hours of the night with the Mariners. We landed at 1.35 and we did it at 2:00 in the morning because the next morning, I was about to walk into the University of Miami. And if I did, back in those days, you had to stay for three years. So it was one of the most exciting, most nerve-wracking experiences of my life.

• 7:20Alex Rodriguez?

  And I thank my mom and my sister for having my back.

• 7:22Fred Taylor?

  Your inspiration, what inspired you to get into the game of baseball?

• 7:27Alex Rodriguez?

  Well, it's interesting, you know, I'm Dominican, right? I was born in New York, raised in Miami, but both of my parents are Dominican. And we take a lot of pride in being Dominican. And in Dominican Republic, it was really about, you know, merengue, baseball and President de Beer, right? And there are some staples and baseball is one of them. And I remember this, Fred, you'll like this. My mom, she wasn't around much because from the time she woke up, she had to make bread. And every month, that rent came and it felt like 30 days came in three days.

• 8:06Fred Taylor?

  Yeah.

• 8:07Alex Rodriguez?

  And I remember as a young man, I went down on one knee, on two knees, and I prayed to God. I said, Dear Lord, please slow down time for my mom because I see the stress and I see the pain. And we had to pay $600 and that was a lot of fucking money, right? And we had to move every 18 months because they kept raising the rents. And then I said, prayer number two, I said, Dear God, if I ever have an opportunity to change places with the landlord, I'm gonna do that. And sure enough, about 12 years later, I'm now 22 and I have an opportunity right down by the Miami Heat Arena on Biscayne to buy my first duplex. And I bought that duplex. And that kind of started my investing career, my entrepreneurial career.

• 8:51Alex Rodriguez?

  And it was all because I was wounded from a little kid watching my mother. Yeah, and that's that's my mom.

• 8:59Fred Taylor?

  It's crazy that you jump right to it because that was one of my questions. I know you have this crazy real estate portfolio, you're a real estate mogul. I wanted to ask you, when did you buy your first property? Because I've gotten into real estate investing, it's amazing. But I wanted to know when you bought your first property, was it when you came out or 22?

• 9:19Alex Rodriguez?

  So my first property, you know, I ended up buying it in my early days in Seattle. And it was a small duplex, it was probably around, I was 22 years old. And a couple of years later, I sold it for double. And I said, oh, okay, this is this is good. And then I bought a fourplex, and then I bought an eightplex. And my biggest investment, I bought 60 units. And I'll never forget this, I had to write a million dollar check down payment. It was a $3 million property. Now, I had $2 million in my bank account. And I mean, we can understand that, I took half of it. And wrote it as a down payment. And I said, dear Lord, I don't know what the hell I'm doing here, but here we go.

• 9:59Channing Crowder?

  Hey, half of anything is a lot.

• 10:00Alex Rodriguez?

  Half of anything is a lot, right?

• 10:02Channing Crowder?

  Half of $5 is a lot.

• 10:03Alex Rodriguez?

  It sounds like a marriage, but in this case, it was just an apartment building, right? So I I buy the apartment, now I'm off to Arizona for spring training. And I am now more concerned about my 60 tenants paying my rent. So that I can pay my mortgage of $2 million, because it was a $3 million building. I put a million, I got a $2 million loan. And I need these tenants to pay the rent, so that I can, you know, cover my mortgage.

• 10:27Fred Taylor?

  Right.

• 10:28Alex Rodriguez?

  And sure enough, that went well, and and, you know, we ended up growing that portfolio to about 15,000 apartment units in 14 states.

• 10:36Fred Taylor?

  Jeez.

• 10:37Alex Rodriguez?

  And but that was a start of, I always tell people, don't look at the headlines. You know, I didn't get 697, 96 home runs overnight, I started with one. I started with a bunt, a hidden run, I started with a duplex. And then you build this empire, one step at a time, focused with great people, great alignment, and great protection.

• 10:59Channing Crowder?

  It wasn't 93 when you bought your first real estate.

• 11:02Alex Rodriguez?

  Right.

• 11:03Channing Crowder?

  So you got that one point, I'm sorry, 1.35.

• 11:06Alex Rodriguez?

  That's right, that's right.

• 11:07Channing Crowder?

  What was that like, though? Like, because y'all y'all jumped to being big time real estate, and you know, we all do real estate, but. Like you came from what you said, you came with your mom and, and, and your siblings. And then you got 1.35 million, like that first contract before, before you were A-Rod.

• 11:24Alex Rodriguez?

  You know, Channing, I, I, I've always been wired for better or worse, different. And, and if we all make a million dollars today, I mean, we can all react differently, right? I mean, we can go say, hey, let's go on a vacation. You can say, hey, let me go buy a Rolls Royce, let's go buy a boat. My whole thing is I'll be like, all right, guys, what can we do with this million to make it grow? I want to take this million and buy assets. I don't want to buy any liabilities because ultimately you're going to get in an elevator. Either one is going to go up or is going to go down. Nothing's going to stay the same. You got to pay Uncle Sam and then I believe in buying assets. And part of the world out there that we have to educate our community is what is the difference between an asset and a liability?

• 12:08Alex Rodriguez?

  When people look at their homes, they say this is an asset. Well, they're wrong. Your home is a liability. My multifamily, your multifamily is an asset. Now you ask why? Number one, very simple. If something takes money out of your pocket every month, that's a liability. If something puts money, if an asset puts money in your pocket, that's an asset. And it's as simple as that. And the more assets we can have and the less liability we can have, we're going to be better off.

• 12:38Fred Taylor?

  Right, but you're 17, 18. When did that, when did that all click? Because if you look at the statistics, at least in our sport, 87% of the guys when they retire are either broke. You know, they're filing bankrupt or divorce. So we don't, we don't come from backgrounds that allow us no financial literacy. We don't know these things. But you're speaking that you bought your first property at 22, which is four years removed from your draft day. When did it all click though?

• 13:08Alex Rodriguez?

  You know, I ended up fear. Fear was the reason why I started so early. You guys remember when Broke came out? And it was a big Sports Illustrated story and then 30 for 30 did their thing. So I started thinking like, man, I was so scared that I was going to be one of those 87%. That I said, what can I do today to get ahead of that? And I started looking at some data. In baseball, average career, five and a half years. You make 90% of your money from age 20 to 30. And less than 5%.

• 13:41Alex Rodriguez?

  of the league has an undergrad college degree. So if you take those three data points, I would short. And meaning that I would bet that most players would end up bankrupt. Hell, most people would end up bankrupt. Forget a sports player, right? Or an athlete, because we've been so myopically thinking about this kind of, we gotta do one thing, we gotta play football, we gotta play baseball. So how the hell can we be good at this too, right? So I, I just basically started one, I said, if I play for five and a half years, that's the average, and I buy one asset every year for five and a half years? When I'm done playing and I'm thirty nine and or whatever it is, I'm gonna have five and a half assets with very little debt, because over that time, I'm gonna pay debt down. And that's gonna be my insurance for not going broke.

• 14:27Alex Rodriguez?

  Right. And it was out of fear. It wasn't out of like, I was smarter than anybody, or I was always thinking about defense and offense. And the one thing I would say is this, I've said this, and look, you take someone like Frank Gore. Frank Gore is my little brother. He's my neighbor. That's my, that's my dog, right? And Frank came out of the Boys and Girls Club with Guy O'Here in Miami. And Frank Gore came to us years ago, in the middle of his career and said, hey, I see you're doing some good things. Um, I wanna invest with you. And Frank started investing with us, and Frank's made a small fortune with us. And it makes me so happy to this day, every month, we send Frank checks, right? Every month, and he's gonna get that for the rest of his life, right?

• 15:08Alex Rodriguez?

  But remember this, so many people, Warren Buffett comes to you, Fred, or Ryan or Channing, says, I have a great deal for you.

• 15:18Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. Good times mean competitions between you and your friends, like seeing who can throw some pigskin the farthest, or rush the field the fastest. Winner gets an ultra. Because it's not just a superior like beer, it's also giving fans superior access to their favorite sporting events. Superior is worth playing for. Visit michelobultra.com/superioraccess to enter. Enjoy responsibly. Copyright twenty twenty six Anheuser Busch InBev Michelob Ultra Beer, St. Louis, Missouri.

• 15:48Alex Rodriguez?

  The three partners are gonna be A-Rod, Jeff Bezos, and Warren Buffett. And Ryan, you're gonna be the fourth. And then you take that deal to your business manager, and guess what he's gonna say? It's not for you. And that's a problem, right? Because when you look at your business manager, look at him as your defensive coordinator. But who the hell is playing offense for you guys? You don't have one, right? And what you guys have, or we all have as athletes, is we have tremendous access while we're playing.

• 16:18Channing Crowder?

  Right.

• 16:18Alex Rodriguez?

  Because when we're done playing, that shuts down a little bit. So while you're playing, and all of you, you guys have a personality on TV, and that helps. But when the players, they can reach out to Magic, they can reach out to Buffett, they can reach out to whom, and they're gonna get a good recall. People are gonna call them back. And I think athletes need to, they already got the defense with their business manager, but what are they doing? Like, if I'm gonna say, I need to be a running back, I'm going to you, and I'm going to Frank, right? Because I don't know anything about being a running back. But in business, for whatever reason, we don't do that. We feel like it's gotta be my idea. But really, green doesn't have, green is green, right?

• 16:57Channing Crowder?

  Yeah.

• 16:57Alex Rodriguez?

  It doesn't have to be your idea. If it's a good one, let's roll.

• 16:59Channing Crowder?

  Did you have to sacrifice to have that thought? It's a great thought, the defensive, keep your money, hold your money. I was a hold my money guy.

• 17:06Alex Rodriguez?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 17:07Channing Crowder?

  I can get 7%. If you can't get 7%, something's wrong with you. I can sit my money up somewhere, get 7%, and be good the rest of my life. But the offensive side of it, do you have to be strategic? And do you have to sacrifice to say, I'm gonna spend a million dollars out of my 2 million to try to be offensive and work this money and make this money work for me?

• 17:27Alex Rodriguez?

  Yeah, a lot of it is strategy, right? Like, if you look at inflation today, it's gonna be 7% or 8%. So if you're making 6%, you're underwater, right? So you have to be really intelligent. One of the things when you own real estate is a hedge against inflation, number one. Number two, whatever real estate you have today, you probably couldn't build it for what you paid for it. So again, I always say, let's start small. Okay, Ryan, if you have $10, I would say, hey, give 9% to your business manager. Let us do one together. I'm gonna put up five, you put up one. I like that. Because your first question is, how much are you putting in?

• 18:04Ryan Clark?

  Yes.

• 18:05Alex Rodriguez?

  If the answer is none, then you know what they say. You're gonna end up with the experience, I'm gonna end up with the money. So, so number one, what are you putting in? We have to be aligned. And, and, and, and watch how that one reacts to the nine. If you're crushing it with the one, then you say, okay, you know what? I'm gonna do two. If you're crushing it with the two, what are you doing over here? Maybe you're the wrong person, right?

• 18:27Ryan Clark?

  Right.

• 18:27Alex Rodriguez?

  But you create a little check and balance. But I will say, start small. I always tell people in my office, everybody that you see here is invested in the company. And if they don't have money, I'll lend it to them. Because I want everybody aligned. When we win a championship, everybody's gotta taste the same champagne. We can't have Alex and, and the partners drinking champagne and then Nick drinking, you know, uh, you know, Presidente beer, even though it's great. Right? But, so it's creating that alignment, but starting small.

• 18:54Ryan Clark?

  Yeah.

• 18:54Alex Rodriguez?

  If, if your investment, this whole thing really gets me going, right? Because what happens, and I always think about my mom, right? Why can't my mom invest with Warren Buffett? It doesn't make sense that all the rich people get all the right deals. By the time it gets to all of us, we're seeing the crap that everybody passed on. So, i-if we think about, how can we put $10,000 with Warren Buffett? How can we put $10,000 with Blackstone? How do we put $10,000 with A-Rod Corp? And let's just see what happens. Put enough money that if you lose it, your life's not gonna change. Maybe it's $2,000, it doesn't matter. But Nick is investing, and he started investing. He invests $10,000, $10,000, and you watch.

• 19:37Alex Rodriguez?

  And what happens is, you're, all of a sudden, you're connected. You're paying attention. Because once your money's in, now you're gonna pay attention. So, that, that's what I encourage our generation to start thinking about. How do I put my money to work?

• 19:50Ryan Clark?

  You know, sitting here has been an education for us already. And listening to you talk about the way you were brought up, the different things that you, uh, your mother and your siblings had to endure. It seemed that, that really shaped who you were, once you did get money. And once you did get an opportunity, uh, to get to the league and become, you know, the landlord and not, not the tenant. But you teach a class at Stanford Business School called Strategic Pivoting. And you're also big into mentoring. What are the things you are trying to pass down, other than just the, the money? The, the heart of what you're trying to get to?

• 20:24Alex Rodriguez?

  Yeah, it's a good question, Ryan. You know, now with direct messaging, we get all these cats. Now, I get dozens and dozens of message direct messaging where players are looking to invest with us. They want advice and I can't do anything with NBA players because I'm an owner, but football and baseball, I help a lot of guys and now we have a lot of guys investing with us. But number one is knowledge. We've heard it from little kid, knowledge is power. But today, you can find knowledge in so many different ways. Back in the day, you had to go to a library. Today, you sit on YouTube and say, you know, how to invest in real estate? Who are the best real estate investors in the world? What are the best markets to invest? If I have $5,000, where can I put it to work? So I tell them about really creating a great ecosystem because you're an average of the first five people

• 21:09Alex Rodriguez?

  you surround yourself with, right? So looking for great mentors. Say, "Hey, Alex, can I come spend a couple of days? I just want to be a fly on the wall. I want to get educated. I want to know how you do things," right? Because that's the way we did it in sports. I think athletes could be some of the best business people in the world because they're tenacious, they're hardworking, they understand failure, they keep getting back up. I think athletes are some of the best potential business people out there if they can just channel some of that energy.

• 21:36Ryan Clark?

  Listening to you say that about athletes makes me think about some of the names you've mentioned though, the Bezos and the Warren Buffett, you know, but also in sports, we've had opportunities to see people like you grow into a mogul of some sort, the Magic Johnsons, the Michael Jordans and the different players who were able to take their success, whether it be on the field or the court, and now build something away from their sport that truly gives them generational wealth. For you, who are some of the guys you maybe talked to, you have conversations with or you sit with that did the same thing for young Alex Rodriguez or even you now that you're doing for some of these young players?

• 22:15Alex Rodriguez?

  Yeah, and you guys should try this, right? Because you'll be surprised how many yeses you get. You mentioned two of them. Warren Buffett has been my mentor for over 20 years. And over five or six years, I would go down to Omaha and spend the entire day with him. And we would spend four or five hours in his office. He would go over all my books, tell me yay. Nay, nay, indifferent, give me all credit, great feedback. And then we'll go grab a nice dinner. And we usually have a steak dinner, then at the end, he would always make me have a little ice cream. That was his favorite. Magic Johnson, over 20 years ago, sat down with me, what was supposed to be a 30-minute coffee. And it ended up being a three and a half hour dinner. And we did that in L.A. With his guy Lon. And Magic gave me the blueprint. And I asked him, why did you spend so much time with me?

• 23:00Alex Rodriguez?

  I said, he said, Alex, you had like 10 pages of notes. I knew you were locked in. And I saw a young me in you. So I wanted to give you my blueprint. And to this day, A-Rod Corp was billed around the advice that Magic gave me that dinner. So I encourage, you know, your listeners and all of us. To continue to elevate by finding people that we trust and respect. And say, hey. I got a couple of questions. A couple of them may be dumb, and what you'll find is there's no dumb questions. And great people at high levels. One of their biggest passions in life is to mentor people that are hungry for information. And you just gotta have a little humility and say, hey, you know what? I need a little help. I got $10,000. I have no idea what to do with it.

• 23:43Alex Rodriguez?

  They're getting 0% in the bank. And, and by the way, or like my mom who put the money under the mattress.

• 23:48Channing Crowder?

  Right.

• 23:48Alex Rodriguez?

  Like, there's a lot of people out there that are scared of banks. Corporate America, so you have to be able to go with someone that you trust and respect. And see if you can put a few dollars next to theirs.

• 23:58Channing Crowder?

  So dig my, dig my grocery bag up in the backyard? I don't trust none of them. You brought it up with the Timberwolves and the Lynx as well, correct?

• 24:07Alex Rodriguez?

  Yes, sir.

• 24:08Channing Crowder?

  Why, why basketball? You're, you're, bro, you're one of the best baseball players ever.

• 24:12Alex Rodriguez?

  Ever to live.

• 24:13Channing Crowder?

  Ever to walk the earth, and you bought two basketball teams. Like, when I, like, when I saw that come out, I was like, buy a baseball team, why not?

• 24:20Alex Rodriguez?

  Well, let me tell you something. You know what I say, game knows game, right?

• 24:23Channing Crowder?

  Yeah.

• 24:23Alex Rodriguez?

  And, and, and when I look at a young Anthony Edwards, or Kat, or, or D-Lo, I, I know what, I know what a champion looks like. And, and, and you guys do too, right? Because you look at another athlete in the eye, and it transcends sports. It is really about this, it's about this, it's about this, right? And that's really important. Then, then I looked at the landscape of, you know, it's funny, my, one of my heroes, Magic, NBA legend, ends up with a baseball team, with the Dodgers. And here I am, I played 25 years of baseball, and I end up with an NBA team. But when you look at the NBA, there's so many things that they're doing right. Number one thing they're doing is all they care about is growing the pie as big as possible, and then they split it right down the middle.

• 25:06Alex Rodriguez?

  So there's no labor issues now, in the future, or ever. So all we're trying to do is, like, I mean, it's simple. It's four of us. Let's grow this friggin' pie as big as possible. I'm gonna take a quarter, you take a quarter, you take a quarter. And then we're all aligned. And when that phone rings, we're all gonna be helping each other, right? And we have this good energy. It's not, so the NBA has a great business plan.

• 25:29Channing Crowder?

  Yeah.

• 25:29Alex Rodriguez?

  Number two, it has great leadership. Adam Silver, Mark Tatum, they just do an incredible job. When they're faced with challenges, they face them head on. They take a negative into a positive. You see how Adam Silver handled the Donald Sterling situation? Boom, Steve Ballmer ends up with the team. Anytime there's a situation, BLM, you name it, they're always out in front. Right message, they're not afraid. It's a global sport. Look, I gotta bribe my girls to come to a baseball game these days, which breaks my heart. My first love is baseball. And, but they don't wanna sit there for four hours, right? Basketball game, we're there for two hours and 15 minutes. We're having dinner and a cocktail at 9:30. A lot of action, right?

• 26:13Alex Rodriguez?

  So, so there's a lot of tailwinds in the NBA. I actually think that if you look at the landscape of the NBA.

• 26:22Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. Good times mean competitions between you and your friends, like seeing who can throw some pigskin the farthest or rush the field the fastest. Winner gets an Ultra. Because it's not just a superior-like beer, it's also giving fans superior access to their favorite sporting events. Superior is worth playing for. Visit michelobultra.com/superioraccess to enter. Enjoy responsibly. Copyright 2026 Anheuser-Busch InBev Michelob Ultra Beer, St. Louis, Missouri.

• 26:52Alex Rodriguez?

  In the NFL, you won't be able to acquire an NFL or an NBA team for less than $5 billion in the next 15 to 20 years.

• 27:00Fred Taylor?

  Oh yeah, because when I look at the investments that you've spoke about, you talk about real estate, you talk about basketball. Essentially, a basketball team is not necessarily real estate, but it's like real estate, right?

• 27:13Alex Rodriguez?

  There's a real estate component.

• 27:15Fred Taylor?

  Right.

• 27:15Alex Rodriguez?

  What you'll find in what I try to invest in is things that have tailwinds, that have a big TAM, meaning it has a huge market, right? Real estate, NBA.

• 27:29Alex Rodriguez?

  And they all generate a lot of cash, right? And it's really very little speculation. Like honestly, like if you can't explain it to me in the back of the envelope in less than two minutes, then I ain't that friggin' smart. You lost me. Break it down to me easy, right? Break it down to me basic. And you look at the NBA is growing 15 to 17% a year. There's young audience all over the world. It's a global sport. It's fun, right? And we gotta keep things fun. In this world where TV contracts are going, if you keep it fun and entertaining, and my daughter's gonna walk in, I can't keep her attention for more than six seconds.

• 28:04Fred Taylor?

  Right.

• 28:04Alex Rodriguez?

  So you think about a four-hour game, it's a challenge.

• 28:08Ryan Clark?

  You look at, you know, you're talking about a four-hour game. Also, the incredibly long seasons, you guys being on the road a ton of time. You know, what did you learn from the adversities of baseball? Whether it be individually on a team, understanding the losses? Because we sit here, and if you read through Alex Rodriguez's bio, it looks like a ton of wins, right? I'm sure if we got an opportunity, look at your portfolio, it would be a ton of wins. But there had to be some things that taught you lessons along the way. What are some of those situations that you said, okay, you know what, Alex? This is something I can learn from, be better about, and help somebody going forward?

• 28:48Alex Rodriguez?

  Yeah, I mean, look, I have a huge portfolio of losses, right, a huge. Um, I'm fifth all time in the history of the game, fifth in the history of strikeouts, right? So that means four, Pete Channing, four people. I know you're good at math. Hey, why are you looking at me? Hey, hey, this is crazy. Freddie T can't do the math, Channing can do it. Right, so, so. I thought he was going a different direction. No, no, I wasn't, I wasn't. So if I'm fifth, that means that only four cats in the history, four fucking cats in the history of mankind have struck out more than me. Right. So I got a PhD in failing, folks. I know how to fail better than anybody. But I always tell my daughters, you know, I have a masters in getting back up. And the thing about failing, i- it's not about failing, it's how you handle failure.

• 29:33Alex Rodriguez?

  And how do you learn from those lessons? And how do you dust off and get back to the box and say, you know what, this time, I'm gonna do it. But do it where you feel like you're still gonna get it done. Because doing it to doing it, that ain't doing it. You gotta come out with the mentality, you kicked my ass, but I'm coming back up. And I always think about the movie Rocky, and I'll never forget the scene where Apollo, Apollo feels like he's got him knocked out, knocked out, knocked out. And he's kinda over there celebrating, and he thinks he has him knocked out, and when he looks back at Rocky, he's still coming. And you saw his face where Apollo says, oh shit, this motherfucker's different. And I always wanna be like Rocky, right? Like, you can punch me, you can knock me, you can count me out, but man, that's fuel to my soul.

• 30:16Alex Rodriguez?

  And, uh, my fir- my first year, I said, my freshman year, my first year, I got demoted five times. The fifth time, I called my mom, I was 18 years old, I said, Mom, what the, man, I remember I had a little Beamer 525, I thought I was a baller, right? They took my ass down to the. 525? Yeah, 525. Tiny one? Nah, it was the middle one. The midsize? The 325 was tiny, but, but I went middle, I went, I went middle. 1.35. I'm like, you mean a 525? But it was used, it was used, and I got a good deal, I negotiated the hell out of that. But, but I was, they took my ass down to Tacoma, and Lou Pannella said, we're gonna send your ass down. I said, Lou, for the fifth time? He said, yeah, you know, you gotta adjust with your strikeouts, and you gotta make the plays.

• 30:57Alex Rodriguez?

  So I'm going down Tacoma from Seattle, about forty-five minute ride. Tears. That was the time where you get that speakerphone in your car for the first time. So I call mom. I wake her ass up and it's like three in the morning back home. Cause I'm in Seattle, she's in Miami. And I said, Mom, you know what? This is what they talk about Plan B. You know, I still got that scholarship at the University of Miami. I'm gonna go throw the rock and be a quarterback and I can't play baseball because I burned that. And she goes, you've gotta be out of your mind. I said, first of all, you better toughen up. And that's not the boy that I raised. And I said, number two, if you bring, come home, I'm gonna change the lock on the door. So I didn't have a choice to come home and that kind of got me going.

• 31:42Alex Rodriguez?

  And then, of course, I served a suspension in 2014. And that was the longest suspension in Major League Baseball history for PEDUs. And that was, that was, that was the blow that I thought was gonna take me out, right? That was like the blow that landed, right? And it was such a, such a humiliating part of my life. Because I let down so many people. Started with my mother and my two daughters first and foremost. And that was a perfect example of, of overreaching and surrounding myself with the wrong people. And when I looked at that suspension and, and the time off. I was hoping that it would be a fifty game suspension like the other guys. But ended up being a full season.

• 32:26Alex Rodriguez?

  And, and what happened was that was a blessing in disguise. And the reason why is I was able to, you know, sometimes you put, you fix the windows in a house and you fix the roof and get the landscape. I needed to tear the whole house down and start one brick at a time. And because I needed that time. It gave me the full year to go back and turn the lens inward and, and go into deep therapy. And Dr. David out in Colorado, who's no longer with us, saved my life. Because I would go for four days intensive. And it would be from nine in the morning to five in the afternoon with no break, no lunch break. He better bring a donut or something.

• 33:12Alex Rodriguez?

  And I, I had, I really got an understanding of why I kept.

• 33:19Alex Rodriguez?

  Making the mistakes that I was making, uh, imploding, right? And I'm like, I'm the only jackass. I told them, this is how I started my therapy, I'm the only jackass that has pocket aces. God gives me pocket aces and I end up losing the hand. And I ended up beating up myself and I would wake up in the middle of the night like, what the have I done?

• 33:44Channing Crowder?

  I just, it hit me. What, what, you know, not all together, but what went on in that session for you to say that? Like what went on there? Like what, what did you find out to go four days a week? You said 10 hours a day?

• 33:55Alex Rodriguez?

  Mm-hmm, basically.

• 33:57Channing Crowder?

  Like what were y'all talking about that long to get you where you are now?

• 34:01Alex Rodriguez?

  Yeah, I mean, I, I remember early on, Dr. Davis said, i- if, if you're not willing to finish this intensive, then don't start it, because you're gonna be worse if you quit in the middle. And, and, and we as athletes, we know commitments, we know long seasons, so I'm like, shit, if I start something, I'm gonna finish, I know how to finish. And I know how to close. And, uh, it was the toughest drill exercise that I've ever had to do. But as a result, I, what I ended up learning as my father left when I was 10 and some of the things I had to deal with that I, that there were unsettled business. Um, all that stuff created a big blind spot.

• 34:47Alex Rodriguez?

  And, and, and the blind spot is scary, right? Because as you start ascending in your career, you don't hear a lot of no's. You hear an awful lot of yeses, right? And, and hanger-oners. And all of this creates a blind spot. And one of the things that, you know, my mom taught me early on is you gotta have these feet where you're at, squarely in the ground. And as you have success and you sign a big contract and then you sign another huge contract uh, for hundreds of millions of dollars, you start losing your way. And it is, is what I described to my daughters as Alex Rodriguez became A-Rod.

• 35:27Alex Rodriguez?

  And sure enough, I came back to being Alex Rodriguez.

• 35:29Fred Taylor?

  Right.

• 35:30Alex Rodriguez?

  Right, and that journey has been interesting and painful at times. But because of all of that, I feel like all of it is a blessing in disguise and has made my life so much fuller.

• 35:43Fred Taylor?

  So you left the Rangers, ended up in New York in 2004, I believe, right?

• 35:48Alex Rodriguez?

  Mm-hmm, yeah.

• 35:49Fred Taylor?

  A friend that we have in common, Chad Bowling.

• 35:53Alex Rodriguez?

  Yeah.

• 35:53Fred Taylor?

  A mental strengthening, conditioning coach. I know you, the city of New York, their fans, they demand it now, especially with the type of contract you receive. I think out the gate, it wasn't necessarily as you guys had planned it to be. But you visited with Chad and the story that I've heard is that your career, there were some, you know, circumstances where you didn't think, you know, you were the same player. You know, with some struggles here and there, and we all go through that as athletes. But you bounced back and eventually in 2009, you guys won the World Series. A lot of young guys, including myself, when I met Chad, Trevor, you know, who's no longer here with us,

• 36:37Fred Taylor?

  I was opposed to mental conditioning. I'm like, I'm good up here. I don't need that. But it made me a better player. How did it make you?

• 36:45Alex Rodriguez?

  Yeah, you know, first of all, Chad was, he was real relatable. You know, he would show up in his, sometimes in uniforms, like in his Yankee gear. So it wasn't like you're going to go see a medical doctor where, you know, you kind of thought that was synonymous with going crazy. So he was more like a performance coach, right? And you can kind of, he had you at hello, kind of, you know, good-looking guy, very unassuming, and I thought that was a big part of it for the trust part. And then, when you have an opportunity to talk and kind of let... You know, a lot of times as athletes, we feel like they look at us as like a piece of meat. Like, we're not, they don't think we're smart. They don't think we see things.

• 37:29Alex Rodriguez?

  And, you know, that's one of the things that's served me so well as an owner so far of a basketball team. Because I understand our players are so smart. They have so much to offer. And at the end of the day, they're our partners and we have to lean on them to teach us what's going on in the clubhouse and what they need. So, one of the things that Chad and I worked on was a system called, and I made this up, and we use this now at A-Rod Corp. Is green, yellow, and red. You should ask Chad about that. But essentially, Ryan, if I'm meeting with you once a quarter, I'm gonna give you the green, the yellow, and the red. I'm gonna first start with the green. So here are the things you're doing well. You know, you're showing up on time, your workout is great, you're being a great leader, blah, blah, blah. I'll give you a three or four.

• 38:13Alex Rodriguez?

  Then I'm gonna say the yellows, you know, something for you to be careful for and watch, right? I see where, you know, you walked into this meeting right on time, you're almost late. You know, you didn't return a couple of those emails that coaches have sent you, so, you know, watch that, because, you know, people... They're not starting to talk, but be careful. And then red, you gotta stop wearing them crazy-ass shoes, you know? Those are gonna kill you. Right? But so what happened was, you went in knowing exactly what to expect. The good, the bad, and the ugly. And then, when we sandwiched it like that, you were more receptive to the red. And then what happened with me was, I was now looking forward for the red more than anything.

• 38:54Alex Rodriguez?

  Because I'm like, okay, I'm good with the green. I know I'm doing some good things. The yellow, that's really interesting. I gotta watch that. But the red, what are the things that I gotta change today? So it gave Chad a license to help me become a better player and a better person in that clubhouse.

• 39:09Ryan Clark?

  Yeah, you mentioned the red and changing things. And obviously, when you go away after your suspension and you go through some of that intensive therapy, I believe that has to change who you are internally and externally. You return and you start to play again. What was the reception like? Because listening to you talk about how smart players are, it brings me back to the locker room and and understanding that when you get around guys, they feel certain energies, right? They feel if you're confident in who you are now, when you get back into that atmosphere, and let's be real, you A-Rod. Like, you ain't just like a regular cat. Like, if we used to follow you and be like, "What, they gonna give him 375? They gonna give him 300?" You know what I mean? And so when you walk back into the clubhouse,

• 39:54Ryan Clark?

  what was the reception like from the rest of the players? And are there any of those guys that you're like, "You know what? These are my favorite teammates, and here's why."

• 40:02Alex Rodriguez?

  Yeah, I think what they sensed, Ryan, was a paradigm shift of who I was as a human being. Like, we grew up around a bunch of bullshitters. I mean, when you grew up in the hood, people lied to you all the time, right? We grew up with a bunch of perpetrators. And it sounds funny. They don't look in your eyes. This shit just...

• 40:19Ryan Clark?

  Everything weasely.

• 40:20Alex Rodriguez?

  Yeah, just like slippery.

• 40:22Ryan Clark?

  Angle, they all have angles.

• 40:23Alex Rodriguez?

  They got an angle. And as players, we know that. We know coaches like that. We know players like that. We know owners like that. So we run the other way. Like, we've got enough of that shit in our lives. So when somebody comes to you and talks to you straight, and they look in your eye, and they're not gonna tell you what you wanna hear, but they're gonna tell you the truth, you go, "Ooh, that shit is different. Okay, okay." And you build credibility. So when they saw me come back, they saw more of that. And it wasn't a sugar coat. And I fucked up, and that's on me. And in period, right? Not like, "Hey, the commissioner had it against me." None of that nonsense bullshit that I was doing. I came back, and the commissioner did what he had to do, because I fucked up, and that's on me. Not on Rob Manfred. That's on me. And it just changes things.

• 41:08Alex Rodriguez?

  And when I started doing that, I started seeing some light at the end of the tunnel. And then the last part was, I started understanding, bringing levity into my life and not taking myself so seriously and having a little bit of fun. Forever, pre-suspension, I was like a robot. I was so fucking uptight. And I was like, you know, wins were home runs and contracts and championships. And post, I was like... Hey, let's go have a pizza with my boys, right? And, and let me go spend some time with my daughters. And having people around here, let them do well. And, and winning just looked completely different. I say pre-suspension and post-suspension. And I think those who have been around me, I will tell you that is a big difference.

• 41:50Channing Crowder?

  And is that the thing too? Because reading about it, because I, I, I, I love you, I don't love baseball. I'll tell you, I, I know A-Rod, but I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna say like, I, I can name your, all your teammates, bro. But there was, there was a narrative that you were a bad teammate. Was that media driven? Like, was there something there? I think, uh, I read Joe Torre, something in his book about you being his bad teammate. Or like, when you got to a team, like, you were kind of standoffish. Was that the, the pre-suspension, A-Rod?

• 42:25Alex Rodriguez?

  Well, I, I will say this, I was a bad motherfucker. Right?

• 42:30Channing Crowder?

  That's real talk.

• 42:30Alex Rodriguez?

  No, and, and I posted every single day.

• 42:33Channing Crowder?

  Yeah.

• 42:33Alex Rodriguez?

  And when you think about star players, the biggest asset is being available, right? And I was available every night to play, no matter what the hell was happening. So for me, a good teammate starts with, you gotta be on that field.

• 42:46Channing Crowder?

  Yeah.

• 42:46Alex Rodriguez?

  Whether you're hurt or you're, or you're not. So, so, so from that standpoint, I thought I was a great teammate. Because I helped you win night in and night out, right? And, and, and that's the most important thing a leader can do. Um, there were things that we talked about pre-suspension, that I was my worst enemy. Right? Because I honestly, I didn't know any better. And it wasn't until I addressed it with therapy, that I realized that I had a blind spot. That I sounded like I was full of shit, even when I wasn't. I just sounded slippery. And, and, and I'm like, what the, you know, I didn't see it. I couldn't hear it, I couldn't smell it. When I got after suspension, when I got done with my therapy, which, which, I, I, I've been in therapy now for eight years, right? And my, my therapy hasn't stopped. As a matter of fact, I had an hour session today.

• 43:31Alex Rodriguez?

  I, I think that I'm, I'm, I'm circling second base. So I, I still got a long ways to go. And I don't think therapy is something that, you know, big, tough boys like us should be embarrassed about. Because I think it's really important, the bigger and tougher you are, the more help you need, right? And the higher you are in the chain, the lonelier, lonelier it gets. So I, I think what was happening, Channing, is that I was doing things that didn't need to be slippery, and I made them slippery. So as a result, when I come out of my suspension, I just became more straight. And if you answer my question, I'm gonna give you a straight answer. And that's it. There's no sugar coating. And I think that kind of made, whether Joe Toy or other people think of that, I was my own worst enemy.

• 44:13Ryan Clark?

  Yeah, you you mentioned, you know, when you came out of therapy, well, continuing to do therapy now. And I'd start thinking about young players. Uh, we had Antonio Brown on the show recently. And it was it was, one, good for me because he was someone I mentored when he was in the league, but he's also someone I butted head with heads with since. When you look at young players like that, what is some advice that you'd want to give those type of players who can be seen as bad teammates or can be seen as doing things that affect the team negatively, but also to the people around them? Because you mentioned a little bit about having the hanger-oners and the perpetrators and those type of people. There's always someone who who needs the the help, so they have to accept it.

• 44:58Ryan Clark?

  But also people around them, there has to be a circle that allows them to ascend and trying to give them a mirror. What advice could you give someone like Antonio Brown and the people that want to help?

• 45:09Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. Good times mean competitions between you and your friends, like seeing who can throw some pigskin the farthest or rush the field the fastest. Winner gets an Ultra. Because it's not just a superior light beer, it's also giving fans superior access to their favorite sporting events. Superior is worth playing for. Visit michelobultra.com/superioraccess to enter. Enjoy responsibly. Copyright 2026 Anheuser-Busch InBev Michelob Ultra Beer, St. Louis, Missouri.

• 45:38Alex Rodriguez?

  Well, first of all, I want to say that I personally love Antonio Brown. Uh, I I love him so much because I see the goodness in this young man. First of all, he's a beautiful looking guy. He's handsome as hell. He grew up right here in Miami. You have to sympathize with the way this young man grew up. It's not like, you know, he grew up in Park Avenue, right? He's seen things that probably none of us have ever seen, right? And so I think as a leader, we have to lead with compassion and empathy. And I recently sat at a Miami Heat game with him and the champ Mayweather. And I was just so impressed by his way, you know. He's got a different way of communicating, but why can't that be celebrated?

• 46:20Alex Rodriguez?

  You know, if he takes off his shirt and he comes out, that's an expression that's happening. Doesn't make him a bad guy? There's a lot of bad shit going on in Russia and Ukraine and COVID. Like, that is bad. Okay, this young man is artistic, right? He wants to wear a glove, he wants to wear a mask. He's got way more flavor than me, right? But I don't see that as a bad thing. What I love about someone like Tom Brady, who I love, is a dear friend of mine, we go back over 20 years. I love how Tom embraced him. Because to me, that's real leadership. When a guy needs you and he's falling down and maybe there's a little confusion. When a guy like that embraces you, Ryan, you probably did the same thing when you played with him. You know, and it comes with a little tough love, it comes with a lot of support.

• 47:02Alex Rodriguez?

  But we can't turn our backs on young people that are going through challenging times. Because what are you gonna go to? The kid who's gonna be there for you?

• 47:10Channing Crowder?

  The leagues should be there for you. I'll answer that question, right? MLB, NFL, NHL, whoever it is, the league should be there for that guy, shouldn't it?

• 47:20Alex Rodriguez?

  They should, and also, like, we have to protect this young man. Remember, when I was 20, shit, when I was 30, I cringe at some of the shit I do, the things that I used to think about. So if a young man like Brown, who still has maybe five or six, seven more years left if he takes care of himself, is how do we take that young man and take him away from the spotlight? Give him a little protection, give him some vitamins, put him around a Chad Boland, put him around a Jerry Rice or Ronnie Lott, these legends, right? Someone like Ryan, Stephen A. Smith, brothers that he respects, that he may not have. Look, I didn't have a father, right? So I had to lean on the Warren Buffett, the Lou Pinellas, the Joe Torres, the Mariano Riveras. Talk about a great teammate, Andy Pettit.

• 48:04Alex Rodriguez?

  We can't turn our backs on young men that are making mistakes. Because, look, if somebody gave up on me, I would not be here today. And over and over, I let people down, but I got back up and I've learned from my mistakes and I'm here today. So we can do the same thing for Brown.

• 48:20Fred Taylor?

  That's a quick pivot for me, aside from AB. I agree with everything you said about AB. He's an amazing person. And, um... That support is always huge. But I want to ask you, you're a girl dad.

• 48:33Alex Rodriguez?

  Mm-hmm.

• 48:33Fred Taylor?

  You know, you're amazing father. We just recently had Jalen Ramsey. He's a girl dad. He states that his kids, his daughters, changed his life. And you also just mentioned you didn't have a father in your life. Does that make you double down with your daughters?

• 48:49Alex Rodriguez?

  Oh, man, that's... You're hitting a deep subject there because when my father left, I had no idea why he left.

• 48:56Fred Taylor?

  Right.

• 48:56Alex Rodriguez?

  I thought it was my fault. You know, when you're 10, your father leaves, you're like, it can't be pops. We do a great job of protecting our loved ones, right? Because that's all we have, and we don't have much. So when he left and I realized that he wasn't coming back, whether it was 13, 14, or 15, I did another one of my prayers, and I said, "Dear Lord, if you ever give me the opportunity to be a father, I'm gonna promise you I'm not gonna let you down."

• 49:19Fred Taylor?

  Could you pray for me? Because it seems like...

• 49:21Ryan Clark?

  Hey, he got the Sierra prayers. He got them Sierra prayers, though. That's what I'm saying. That's how she got Russell Wilson.

• 49:29Channing Crowder?

  I didn't see your call, though.

• 49:32Fred Taylor?

  I need God, remember, because I'm being a secretary and somebody else. I need to talk to the man.

• 49:38Alex Rodriguez?

  But I made a promise to the good man upstairs, and I basically said, "I'm gonna be a present father, and that's gonna be my number one mission." And having little girls, it's so important for us male figures to be around our daughters. Last night at dinner, I'm gonna put the phones away, take the iPads, no electronics. We're gonna have some old-school conversations here, and it's gonna be one conversation, and we're gonna listen. And, you know, Nick's my nephew, and if he's on his phone, I'll jump somebody's ass, right? Because this is our time, it's one hour. We're gonna have some old-school conversations, and I'm telling you, everyone's like this. It's like they can't... They're crackberry. And I'm like, oh, you're gonna wait.

• 50:22Alex Rodriguez?

  And I take the phones, and they can them over, and I put them next to me, and nobody's gonna touch that. And now we're gonna say, "What you learn at school? Tell me what are the boys talking about?" And it's so much fun. But we have to, like we said for Antonio Brown, we have to be there for our kids. We can depend, they're gonna learn those things at school. We gotta spend that time with our children.

• 50:42Fred Taylor?

  And sports, do they like sports? Did they enjoy your career? Or they just like, ah, I'm a good girl stuff?

• 50:48Alex Rodriguez?

  A little bit like that.

• 50:49Fred Taylor?

  Right.

• 50:51Alex Rodriguez?

  They are into music, drama. I recently took... Natasha to Michigan. I took my ex-wife Cynthia, who's a dear friend of mine and an amazing woman, her husband Angel, and we all went up there as a kind of a 2022 family. We went on the plane and we watched Ohio State against Michigan. She wants to go to Michigan. Mom went to Ohio State. So I loved it. I played referee and them two were going at it.

• 51:16Ryan Clark?

  That's very, that is very 2022.

• 51:19Alex Rodriguez?

  Very 2022.

• 51:20Ryan Clark?

  Yeah, you took everybody.

• 51:22Alex Rodriguez?

  Yeah, everybody, everybody.

• 51:24Channing Crowder?

  That's a mixed family, that man.

• 51:27Channing Crowder?

  But with the girls, I need some advice, man, because you're just a smart dude. I learned so much. Do girls talk about boys? Like, how do you? Because I don't want to tell my daughter, "Don't talk to boys." But I also don't want to embrace that she likes a little boy named Jace, and I hate Jace.

• 51:40Alex Rodriguez?

  Yeah.

• 51:41Channing Crowder?

  Because he's talking to my daughter. Like, how you talking to your girls about relationships?

• 51:46Alex Rodriguez?

  It's interesting because, like, literally, they're 13 and 17. And Natasha drives, and Ella thinks she's like 17, too, because she wants to be like sister. And every night, I hear something that makes me cringe, but I gotta act cool, because I want to hear more. So, like, "This boy did that, someone smoked this." I was like, "What the?"

• 52:09Ryan Clark?

  2022.

• 52:10Alex Rodriguez?

  Yeah, I'm like, you know, so I gotta act cool, so they don't think that, you know, you know, Nick always says, "Hey, dad jokes and dad body and all this other stuff." But I try to just, you know, flow with the flow, but I think being there, being open, and again, not having a knee-jerk reaction on things. So they're gonna be like, "Wait a minute, dad's like, he's an L7. I'm not gonna tell him shit."

• 52:30Ryan Clark?

  Well, you want them to maybe feel that they can come to you, too. You never want your daughters, you know, I have two girls myself. I never wanted them to feel like you couldn't tell dad.

• 52:38Channing Crowder?

  They gonna talk to a man.

• 52:39Ryan Clark?

  Yeah, I'm always like, no matter what, in the, at the end of the day, I'm your father. And I love you, and I will love you forever. There's nothing that you can do that's gonna make that change. And you have to allow your girls to know that. Now, listen, I've had to listen to some stuff. My daughter's 23, my oldest. And I've had to hear some stuff, and I'm just like, "Oh, Lord, like, I failed." You know what I'm saying? Like, I might not be good at this. You know what I mean? But it's those conversations that now, when we talk and, you know, she tells, she's working in San Francisco, and she tells me how much she misses me, I realize that because of those conversations, we have that relationship.

• 53:11Alex Rodriguez?

  Right. And Fred, by the way, talking about God, it's not all one way. He'll pay back. That's why I got two daughters.

• 53:17Channing Crowder?

  That is true. That is very true. He had to teach you. This is one thing, man. You talked about your ex-wife and, you know, your, your, your relationships are very open. Everybody knows about what you've been through and all. I wanted to ask you, you know, kinda just for them, pretty much, because me and you are dimes. It's hard to be a male dime, you know?

• 53:34Ryan Clark?

  What you mean, male dime what?

• 53:36Channing Crowder?

  Like, fine, you know, he got the pretty eyes, he clean cut, like, we're tins. It's hard to be a male tin.

• 53:42Ryan Clark?

  You are eight and a half, Freddie. Y'all about eight and nine.

• 53:45Channing Crowder?

  But like, but, but, but me and you. I can't believe you put yourself on the same level with him, though. Asia got you messed up. Do you see what, what side they put us on? This is free teeth, uh, like, never mind. Hey, Ryan, I'm about to get my teeth done. That's all good, that's all good. I love it, big homie. I love it, I love it, I love it, I love it. But, but, being, being a successful, good-looking, rich as hell, let's be honest, I be sitting in your goddamn office. Like, what, what challenges does that bring to look the way you look, having the sex you have, have the fame you have? And now you're just trying to sit down and have a damn dinner at the Piccadilly?

• 54:21Alex Rodriguez?

  Yeah.

• 54:22Ryan Clark?

  Boy, you know, Alex Rodriguez, there ain't no damn Piccadilly no more.

• 54:25Channing Crowder?

  You don't go to the Piccadilly?

• 54:26Alex Rodriguez?

  Piccadinner.

• 54:28Channing Crowder?

  You get a Piccadinner? Who knows what it is? Piccadinner.

• 54:33Alex Rodriguez?

  No, I think it goes back to what Ryan asked earlier, which I thought was the right question, is like, the whole thing, when, when you get into like the less fake bullshit, uh, perpetrating, you start attracting people. And, and my doctor told me this, he said, Alex, if you get this right, you're gonna see the ball better at Yankee Stadium. You're gonna go back and be more confident. You're gonna attract better people in your life. You're gonna attract those, a beautiful lady in your life that, that is beautiful, uh, in more ways than one, right? And, and I think as you start changing the way you live your life, I think you start attracting better people.

• 55:11Channing Crowder?

  The attention you grab. Is that hard still? Like, at twenty, at twenty-one it was hard. I'm thirty-eight now, so I'm getting out of it. But the attention you grab when you walk into some. Can you walk down the street right now? You know what I'm saying? You're gonna grab so much attention even being you. Like, is that hard to deal with? Have you accepted it?

• 55:27Alex Rodriguez?

  It's not. You know why? Because I've gone to rock bottom, right? And I remember sending out emails and people wouldn't return my emails. And it was heartbreaking. I've been A-Rod for in thirty-nine years and now I'm a pariah. And nobody wants to deal with me. And that's because I did that to myself. So that reality check, I say, has set up the back nine of my life with full of appreciation, grateful, humbled, knocked on my ass. And I, and I never want my children or anyone that I love to go through what I went through. But in a way, it was the best medicine that I needed.

• 56:07Alex Rodriguez?

  Because my highs were so high that I needed a low to match it. And I was a fucking ground zero. Depressed, sad. I was probably too much of a narcissist to think about taking my life. But that's just because I was so damn arrogant, probably. But it was, it was the lowest point, uh, by far of my entire life.

• 56:31Fred Taylor?

  The, the suspension. Would that be your biggest pivot? After that? And, and, and coming off of that, did you have to work twice as hard as you did to, to, you know, before your, you know, your debut as a, as a rookie in MLB?

• 56:48Alex Rodriguez?

  Yeah, it, it was, it was the hardest thing to ever come back from because for the first time, I felt like I was an underdog again, which I know how to be an underdog because I was my whole life growing up. But ever since I became a professional, I got that 1.35, I, I was a Goliath. And I was on this path with Ken Griffey Jr. and Edgar Martinez and Randy Johnson and Jeter and I, championship and this and that. And then I went back to the bottom. And I had to reconnect with that little boy that was fifteen, sixteen years old that had to grind his ass off, right? And but but it was the medicine that I needed at the time to get back up and and try to do it again. And and I tell people this, there's a lot of people out there that are listening to your show. Um, and watching this show that are going through some hard times.

• 57:34Alex Rodriguez?

  And they wake up, they go to sleep at night, and they wake up and and don't know if they're gonna be able to pay the rent. Don't know if they're gonna have food to put on the table for their children. And my message to them is, you know,

• 57:48Alex Rodriguez?

  visualize where you want your life to be in five years, ten years, and then work backwards. You know, pray, connect, work hard. You know, your attitude would determine your altitude. And anything's possible, but do not lose hope. Work your ass off, get up, smile, and don't ever give up, don't ever give up. Because if I would have given up, I wouldn't be here with you guys, and it's an honor to be here with you guys.

• 58:15Fred Taylor?

  Hundred percent, for sure. You just mentioned Jeter, you know, and to go from the Rangers to New York, having to go from shortstop to third base. You know, was it an ego thing involved, or you accepted that? What was that like?

• 58:29Alex Rodriguez?

  You know, to me, it was an easy decision, right? Because when George Steinbrenner called me to say, do you want to be a Yankee? He was very clear, and he said, I have a four-time world champion shortstop. He's the captain, and he's not moving. And I said, well, boss, that's the only way I would have it. He said, if you want to come play third base, game on, I'm gonna bring you to be a Yankee. And that was the agreement from day one. And and Jeter and I, we never had an issue around that, and that was the agreement. And when you make an agreement, that's the deal, that is the deal. And I was, I I, as a matter of fact, I think I told Joe Torre once, if you put me in short, I'll ask for a trade. So my agreement to George Steinbrenner was, I am the third baseman.

• 59:10Alex Rodriguez?

  Jeter is an incredible shortstop, and someone who was a very close friend and someone that I admired, uh, and, uh... Five-time World Champion, Hall of Famer. So it was a great marriage.

• 59:20Fred Taylor?

  Yeah, it reminds me of LeBron coming to Miami, sharing a stage with D Wade. You know, you're going to New York, sharing a stage with Jeter. Just two superstars, you know, above-the-atmosphere stars, whatever you want to call them. You know, sometimes people think you guys are just butt heads, but you guys were there for one goal, one goal in coming. And we don't know that, right? I don't know if the media ever addressed it. Were there ever moments where there was friction? Because you are a, as Shannon would like to say, um, alpha male. Alpha male, a dog.

• 59:53Channing Crowder?

  If you walk in the room, you got an order to you.

• 59:55Fred Taylor?

  Correct. And I'm sure Jeter, that's been Jeter's team.

• 59:58Alex Rodriguez?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 59:59Fred Taylor?

  Was there ever butt heads or friction? Or just, you know, happy, friendly competition?

• 1:00:05Alex Rodriguez?

  Look, at the end of the day, there's no relationship that's always going to be 100% goody-goody, right? I mean, that's just not realistic.

• 1:00:11Fred Taylor?

  No.

• 1:00:12Alex Rodriguez?

  Um, you go back to my Seattle days, and I had some friction at some point with, with Buhner or with Griff. In Texas, I had maybe some friction with Buck Showalter for a minute. With Jeter, with, with Mariano, with... It's called a brotherhood. And, and when you play 200 games in 232 days, and you don't have some friction, then you're not competing, you're not an alpha, you're not a champion. Because we bring it every day, and I've never met a player that wanted to win, understood winning, leadership, the little things, the big things, the big moment. I, I was in awe of Derek Jeter and how he handled those big moments. And the truth is, I always felt like he can score 140 runs,

• 1:00:55Alex Rodriguez?

  I can drive in 140 runs, and together we were better. And that's why we were world champs. Hey, what's up, champ? Speaking of stars. Hey. Shout out. What up, brother? What's good?

• 1:01:10Alex Rodriguez?

  How you doing, big man? You good? You good, fam? Yes, sir. Looking good, man.

• 1:01:14Channing Crowder?

  You good, bro? Good to see you, brother.

• 1:01:17Fred Taylor?

  It's me.

• 1:01:18Channing Crowder?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. He said, "Whatever you want."

• 1:01:49Speaker 05

  Every game day you show up for your team. Now it's your time.

• 1:01:59Speaker 05

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