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Mark's father, John, was a Navy pilot and played high school baseball with Bucky Dent. His uncle Pete was in the Braves' organization.
The Teixeira family lived in Severna Park, Maryland, a suburb of Baltimore. John Teixeira, Mark's dad retired from the Navy and worked for a large defense contractor. His Mom, Margy, was a teacher.
- Teixeira grew up 20 or 30 minutes from Orioles Park at Camden Yards.
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As a kid, Teixeira put a poster of his favorite player, Don Mattingly, on his bedroom wall. When he signed his pro contract and moved out, his parents took down the poster two different timesand tried to spruce up the room, making it more suitable for guests. Both times, the man returned home for the holidays and hung it in the same spot.
It is still hanging, even with the frame having lost one of its sides.
But Mark was a huge fan of the Orioles and adored Cal Ripken. Teixeira became fascinated with Mattingly because of his impeccable fielding and his smooth swing. At the time Teixeira homed in on Mattingly, he was about 6 or 7.
During Mark’s childhood, he attended at least one Yankees-Orioles game a year at Memorial Stadium and then Camden Yards. On those days, Teixeira wore a Yankees shirt and cap and was treated like the enemy in his own backyard. Camden Yards was not littered with Yankees fans the way it often is now, so Teixeira’s allegiance to Mattingly was unusual.
“Guys were saying words to me that I didn’t understand at that age,” Teixeira said. “But I had to support Mattingly.” (Jack Curry-NY Times-3/01/09)
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Teixeira has long been a huge fan of Don Mattingly. When he was a kid in Baltimore, "I'd wear a Mattingly shirt to (Orioles) games," enduring endless epithets from O's fans. "I just loved the way he played—I loved his swing," Mark said.
That is why Teixeira wears uniform #23, Mattingly's old number.
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Teixeira goes by the nickname "Tex."
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When Teixeira was a freshman in high school, his mother had breast cancer. "It was pretty close to being fatal, but she went through chemotherapy and she's now 100% recovered. But that was very, very tough," Mark recalled.
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At Baltimore's Mount St. Joseph High School, he had set Maryland state records for home runs (29) and RBI (108), finishing his career with a .548 batting average.
Mark also was a star in basketball and soccer in high school. And, he was a member of the National Honor Society.
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When Teixeira was a junior, preparing to play an American Legion baseball game, one of Mark's best friends was killed in a car accident. Nick Liberatore was sitting in the backseat of a car parked on the side of Interstate 95 when a trucker fell asleep at the wheel and plowed into him. Every Wednesday night for the next year, Teixeira and his friends went to the Liberatores' house for dinner.
After Teixeira signed his first professional contract, with the Rangers in 2001, he asked Mount St. Joseph principal Barry Fitzpatrick how much it would cost to endow a scholarship in Liberatore's name. Fitzpatrick told him he would have to start with $75,000. "Mark took out his checkbook and wrote the check right there," Fitzpatrick says.
Teixeira still funds the Nick Liberatore scholarship program at Mount St. Joseph.
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In 1998, Teixeira passed up $1.5 million from the Red Sox, who drafted him number nine out of Mount St. Joseph High School in Maryland.
One of the big reasons Teixeira didn't sign with Boston, according to Mark and his family, is that then-Red Sox scouting director Wayne Britton cursed at his father, and was rude and ingracious to both his parents during signing negotiations. And Britton refused to let the family contact anyone else in the Red Sox organization. The Teixeiras decided then and there that even if the money could be agreed upon, there was no way their son would sign with the Sox.
Instead, Teixeira went to Georgia Tech to play baseball for three seasons, where he posted a career .400 average and boosted his stock even further.
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At Georgia Tech, Mark majored in management. He received the 2000 Dick Howser Trophy as College Baseball's Player of the Year. And he was a first-team Academic All American.
"One of the great things about Georgia Tech is that my whole life kind of started there," Teixeira said. "I established myself as a pretty good baseball player, but also made lifelong friends and met my wife, which was the most important decision of my life. So it all came together (in Atlanta).
"We met my freshman year at a party," Mark recalled. "The first time I met her, I knew I had to hold onto her, so I spent the next three years doing just that." (Jon Cooper-ChopTalk-March 2008)
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As for his agent: "People ask why I hired Scott Boras to be my agent," Teixeira said. "Answer number one: Organizations are going to use everything they can against the players, and I'm going to use everything I can against the team, because it is a business. And anyone who doesn't think so is kidding themselves.
"I love talking to high school kids about going to college, because it was the best three years of my life. I love playing in the big leagues, but nothing compares to life in college," Mark said.
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Teixeira came to the plate to the Jimi Hendrix song, "All Along the Watchtower." That is what has played for Mark when he goes to bat since his days at Georgia Tech and even for a few years after he reached the Majors.
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Mark is a leader. He has excellent makeup and work ethic. He works hard even during infield and batting practice. And he's very coachable.
"He has the makeup of a CEO," Boras says. "He's not gregarious or emotional in his decision making. He is very businesslike, very much about information."
Boras and Teixeira first met when Teixeira was a senior at Mount St. Joseph, an all-boys Catholic school where the students wear Oxford shirts and ties. Teixeira's high school coach, Dave Norton, wanted him to sign with Ron Shapiro, a Baltimore-based agent who had represented Orioles legends Cal Ripken, Jr., Brooks Robinson, and Eddie Murray. But Shapiro showed up late to his first meeting with Teixeira and, as Norton says, "That did not sit real well with Mark."
Teixeira instead signed with Boras. And Boras calls Teixeira "the ideal client," in part because his business sense is so clearly more refined than the average ballplayer's. (Lee Jenkins-Sports Illustrated-12/08/08)
- In 2003, Mark set a Rangers spring training record with eight home runs. The old record of seven homers was shared by Ruben Sierra and Pete Incaviglia (1989) and Dean Palmer (1994).
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On August 17, 2004, Teixeira hit for the cycle for the Texas Rangers—the second player in team history to accomplish the extremely rare feat. Oddibe McDowell was the first, July 23, 1985, also against the Cleveland Indians. between the cycles by McDowell and Teixeira, there have been 58 cycles in the big leagues.
Along the way, Mark became the 17th switch-hitter in history to hit for the cycle, with the last being Jose Valentin, who accomplished the feat with the White Sox in 2000.
"I think I did it in Little League when I was 11 or 12 years old, but never in high school or college or the pros," Teixeira said. "I was excited and definitely happy inside, but you never want to show up an opponent when you are winning."
Teixeira's single in the seventh inning off Indians reliever Cliff Bartosh completed the cycle and an eventful day that saw him go 4-for-5 with one strikeout and seven RBIs, a career high for runs driven in and the most by a Rangers player this season.
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On February 20, 2006, Mark's wife, Leigh, delivered a baby boy, Jack Gordon. He is the couple's first child.
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March 2006: Teixeira did not fare well playing for Team USA in the World Baseball Classic. He was hitless in 15 at-bats. "Playing every three days against guys you've never faced before, it's not easy," Mark said.
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Mark is a real good guy, accessable to the media and a solid teammate.
He says his best friend in baseball is David Dellucci. "I played two years with him in Texas (2004–2005). We still keep in contact."
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On May 13, 2007, Teixeira passed Alex Rodriguez for most consecutive games played for the Texas Rangers: 483.
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Teixeira has openly spoke about his desire to play for his hometown team, the Baltimore Orioles.
"I grew up as a diehard Orioles fan, there's no secret about that," he said. "My family still lives in Severna Park [Maryland] and they'll probably live there the rest of their lives.
"I lived in Maryland my whole life. My Dad was in the Navy and went to the Naval Academy. We basically had a normal life growing up. I did go to a bunch of Navy football games, basketball games, a few baseball games. We were definitely involved in Navy sports," Mark said.
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Playing for the Braves was special, too. "My wife, Leigh, and her family ar from (Habersham County, north of Atlanta), and we both went ot school (at Georgia Tech).
"We met at a party on campus. As soon as I met her, I knew I wasn't going to let her go. That was at the end of my freshman year, and we dated the whole time through college. We got married in December 2000," Mark said.
Leigh says, "Mark's roommate introduced us at a party, and we talked all night. We went on one date after that, then he left to play in the Cape Cod League (where he was named the top prospect)."
When he returned that fall, they dated exclusively, remaining sweethearts through college. And Leigh graduated with a degree in industrial design from Georgia Tech. She worked in product design for Pier One Imports, including designing products that made it to the market.
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On October 10, 2007, Leigh gave birth to their daughter, Addison Leigh in Beford, Texas. She joined their son, Jack, who was born in Ferbruary 2006.
And they have a dog, Maggie, a Cavalier King Charles spaniel.
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Mark is a hands-on Dad. When their children are babies, he feeds and diapers, especially during the offseason.
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During airplane trips, Mark likes to read.
"I read all nonfiction," he said. "I like history, reading biographies, mainly to learn about the times and places people lived. I read a biography of Charles Lindbergh and Howard Hughes (in 2007). I read about baseball players—Joe DiMaggio and Lou Gehrig," Teixeira said.
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After being traded in 2007, Teixeira left the Rangers with a .533 slugging percentage, the second highest in club history among players with 3,000 plate appearances. Juan Gonzalez leads with a .565 slugging percentage. He also ranks seventh with 153 home runs.
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A Major League baseball player hears The Star-Spangled Banner upward of 190 times every year, and even the most patriotic among them will, at some point, be caught blowing a bubble or spitting a sunflower seed. During the 2008 season, Torii Hunter watched Teixeira closely, wondering when he might finally glance at the out-of-town scoreboard or gesture to an opposing player or at least scratch an itch.
"He never does," Hunter says. "He stands perfectly straight, head down, shirt tucked in every single time. He doesn't say a word. He doesn't even have a hair out of place."
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When he walks into the clubhouse, dressed in slacks and a button-down shirt, the first thing he does is turn off his cellphone so he is not distracted and does not bother anyone else. He says he has a "plan for every day," which requires that he eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich before each game and scarf down a Power Bar in the middle innings.
"Some people would call me obsessive compulsive," Teixeira says, "but I take my job very seriously and my preparation very seriously. I am not the kind of guy who goes out at night and parties." (Lee Jenkins-Sports Illustrated-12/08/08)
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May 2009: Teixeira autographed a copy of a Newsday cover from May 17, 2006, which showed Teixeira (then with Texas) hitting Posada hard on a play at home plate in New York. The inscription read: "To Jorge–Thanks for your forgiveness. Now we are best friends! Mark Teixeira."
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April 2010: During his seven-plus years in the Majors, Teixeira has visited numerous children’s cancer wards and spoken to hundreds of patients. But Teixeira said none of those experiences touched him as much as the encounter he had in February with 19-year-old Brian Ernst.
Teixeira met Ernst only once, at Children’s Hospital in Atlanta, and talked to him one other time on the phone. Ernst, a promising high school pitcher from Oakwood, Ga., who died March 16 of a rare form of cancer, so impressed Teixeira with his sense of humor in the face of a terminal illness that Teixeira wrote Ernst’s first name and jersey number, 5, on the inside of his cap, where it remains.
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April 26, 2010: Durking the Yankees' White House visit celebrating last year's World Series Championship, Obama commended Mark Teixeira for his efforts away from the field, telling the White House audience of the college scholarship Teixeira established at the age of 21 in memory of a close friend who had been killed in a car crash during their junior year.
Teixeira was taken aback by the mention, especially given the subject matter. Teixeira remains in touch with the family of Nick Liberatore and planned to call as soon as he left the White House to relate the President's words.
"I was blown away," Teixeira said. "For the President to single me out, I was very honored. I've always thought baseball is just a tool for me to try to do work for other people. I've been very blessed in my career, and the first thing I did when I had a chance was that scholarship."
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May 5, 2010: Teixeira received his 2009 Silver Slugger Award in a pregame on-field ceremony. Teixeira has won the award three times.
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March 2, 2011: Teixeira ended his relationship with the Scott Boras Corporation.
"Scott and I have had a great relationship business-wise," Teixeira said. "We both have worked well together. He was obviously disappointed but hopefully when I see him we'll be able to shake hands and say thanks for the work that we've done for each other."
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Teixeira fell in love with fruit and vegetable juices over the offseason before 2012 spring training, having been introduced to a New York company called Juice Press, and it is a major reason why the slugger showed up for camp with a body that deleted 15 pounds.
"There's all these diets and fads out there, but no one has ever said, 'You're eating too many vegetables,'" Teixeira said. "That's really the only thing I changed in my diet, substituting juice for what I would call normal snacks or unhealthy food."
Mark didn't perform a complete overhaul of his diet, like Prince Fielder did a few years back with the Brewers, when the burly slugger opted to become a vegetarian. Teixeira still enjoys his share of meat, fish and potatoes, so he looks at this as more of a healthy supplement or substitution. He grabs two or three of the cold-pressed juices from his shipment per day, taking them to the ballpark and freezing the ones he doesn't need right away. He can often be found chugging one after batting practice, opting for the juice instead of his old stand-by, a processed energy bar.
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Mark played a bartender in the hit musical "Rock of Ages" on Broadway.
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As of 2013, Mark and his wife Leigh have three children.
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In August 2011, he made a cameo appearance during the eighth and final season of the HBO TV series "Entourage" along with teammate Alex Rodriguez.
NEW DIET
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February 2014: Teixeira announced that he is now gluten free, sugar free and dairy free, which he hopes will keep him injury free.
Teixeira's belief in his new diet and renewed weightlifting program makes him believe that he can stay fully healthy for the first time since 2011. If he does, Teixeira thinks he can be a 30-homer and 100-RBI player again.
Mark thinks that with his new diet he will cut down on the inflammation in his body. He said he will use the diet, which consists of no bread and a lot of buffalo meat, the rest of his playing career. He said he reconfigured his body, adding 13 pounds of muscle, while losing fat.
Mark's gluten-free menu—headlined by spinach smoothies, bison burgers, and turkey bacon—hasn't become a popular choice in the Yankees' clubhouse, though if he continues hitting for power, he just might gain a few converts along the way.
"I'm very thankful for the health, and it is what I envisioned; hitting more home runs, driving the ball, taking that 'A' swing that you guys have heard me talk about before, being able to be strong and healthy, and take my normal swing," he said.
"I think it's definitely helped," Teixeira said. "After the surgery in '13, and really having a tough season all year—feeling like garbage in 2014, all year basically—I knew I had to go all-in with the diet and really ramp up everything about my offseason program, and it's paid off."
"I want the run production," manager Joe Girardi said. "The bottom line is how many runs you score." (Hoch - mlb.com - 4/24/15)
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Mark has been involved in charitable endeavors throughout his career. In 2006, Mark and his wife, Leigh, established the Mark Teixeira Charitable Fund, an initiative that awarded scholarships to students from multiple high schools in the Dallas/Fort Worth area.
In 2009, he served as a spokesman for the National Foundation for Cancer Research through the organization's "Help Strike Out Sun Damage" program. He also endowed a scholarship at his alma mater, Mount St. Joseph High School in Baltimore, to honor his friend, Nick Liberatore, who passed away in a car accident while the two were in school together.
The Mark C. Teixeira Athletic Scholarship Fund was established at Georgia Tech, where he attended college, and Teixeira has been an avid supporter of Harlem RBI, a nonprofit organization in East Harlem, N.Y., that provides more than 1,700 boys and girls with year-round academic, sports and enrichment programs.
In 2010, he became a member of their board of directors, and made a donation of $100,000 to the organization's college preparation program. In 2011, he was honored at Harlem RBI's "Bid for Kids" gala, which helped raise $2.25 million. Since then, Teixeira has chaired the event each of the last four years as it has raised a combined $14.8 million.
In 2011, he donated $1 million to Harlem RBI and launched his own "Dream Team 25" campaign to call on his fans to raise additional funds for its partnership with DREAM charter school to construct a 450-seat public charter school facility, community center, 87 units of low-income housing and a rebuilt public park. (Hoch - mlb.com - 9/14/15)
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March 2016: Teixeira was able to show off his acting chops while making a cameo on Showtime's "Billions." Teixeira appeared in a scene with the series' lead character, played by Damian Lewis, pitching him on the health food company Juice Press -- a venture that Teixeira is involved with in real life. The episode aired on March 13th.
- Aug 5, 2016: Mark announced his retirement at the end of the 2016 season.
