Alex Rodriguez is definitely a self-proclaimed mama’s boy.
“She is the biggest inspiration in my life,” the former Yankee tells PEOPLE of Lourdes, who was raised by Rodriguez as a single mother after they returned to Miami from the Dominican Republic when Alex was 10.
“She’s 89 today and she can out dance me and drink me out,” Rodriguez says with a laugh. “We had a holiday party recently and I was in bed at 2 in the morning and I woke up the next day and everyone was like, ‘Yeah, your mom was up until 5:30 drinking!’ I said, ‘Wow mom.’ But she’s amazing.”
Alex Rodriguez Says Intermittent Fasting Helped Him Lose 30 Pounds: ‘I Wasn’t My Best’
He also says she’s the reason he worked so hard at baseball when he was younger.
“My father left when I was 10 years old, and my mother had to work overtime and started working two jobs,” Rodriguez recalls. – In the morning she was the secretary, and at night she served tables, so she would be gone from eight in the morning until midnight.
Because she was so busy making a living, she couldn’t even watch her son at his Little League Baseball games.
“No, she didn’t come often. I remember she probably came to a handful of my games growing up, and I remember how nervous I got,” he says, adding, “When she was there, I tried to really impress her.”
Alex and Lourdes Rodriguez at Yankee Stadium in 2016.
Drew Hallowell/Getty
She’s also the reason he became interested in business at a young age, founding A-Rod Corp in 1995. (Today, that investment firm is valued at more than $1 billion.)
“I knew early on that financial literacy was my way out and a way to help my mother. So I became a great student of financial literacy and how to make it possible for my family and myself,” he said. he says he is a self-taught investor.
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Part of his mission now is to inspire other people to learn how to grow their money.
“One of the things I’m really passionate about is financial leadership and the true democratization of investing,” Rodriguez explains. “So whether it’s athletes or people of color or minorities like me, there should be equality. That’s really important to me, because I have a real problem with people who think investing is only for the super rich. The truth is that already for a long time that was the case — that the richest people got all the biggest opportunities — but I think it’s kind of counterintuitive that you have to be a multimillionaire to be an investor.”
She adds, “I always think about it from my mom’s perspective. If all she had to invest was $500, why couldn’t she?”
Alex Rodriguez says his new podcast Agreement talks about America’s ‘fourth sport’ — ‘the business of sports’ (exclusive)
Rodriguez’s latest venture is the Bloomberg Originals podcast Agreement, where he and his co-host, journalist Jason Kelly, dissect some of the biggest business moves by athletes, entertainers and executives from various industries. Famous guests include Derek Jeter, Michael Strahan and Maria Sharapova.
The 12-episode limited series will include both audio and video.
“The way we see the world, at least my thesis, is that growing up we had three major sports: baseball, basketball, football,” Rodriguez says of the podcast. “I think the fourth sport today – and probably as popular as any of them – business sport and media.”
He adds: “We thought there was an opportunity to really talk to some of the best minds in sports and media.”
To read more about Alex Rodriguez, pick up this week’s issue of PEOPLE magazine, on stands now.
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Source: HIS Education