By Richard Kaufman
Sentinel Reporter
On May 17, at the Greenwich Country Club, the Greenwich Leadership Forum will hold its annual dinner, and Greenwich resident and former New York Yankees first baseman Mark Teixeira will be the special guest interviewee.
The GLF is an organization that provides a forum for business executives to explore how faith and religious principles can play an important role in their decision-making while building and leading successful and ethically sound organizations.
In addition to Teixeira, this year’s honorees will be Cynthia and David Kim, co-founders of the Children of Fallen Patriots Foundation.
Teixeira, 38, grew up in Severna Park, Md., and attended Mount Saint Joseph High School in nearby Baltimore. He was originally drafted out of high school by the Boston Red Sox in the ninth round of the 1998 amateur draft, but instead went to Georgia Tech. He was taken fifth overall, in 2001, by the Texas Rangers.
Over his 14-year career, which saw stops with the Rangers, Atlanta Braves, Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, and Yankees, Teixeira slashed .268/.360/.509 with 409 homers, 1,298 RBI, and garnered three All-Star appearances, four Gold Gloves, and a World Series Championship, in 2009, with New York.
Teixeira, who retired from baseball after the 2016 season, was introduced to the GLF by friends, and has attended a couple of board meetings.
“For me, [the GLF] kind of reaffirms that doing the right thing in business and your professional life pays off, and it pays off not only morally and spiritually, but financially as well,” Teixeira said. “I think what the GLF does is it allows people to understand that you can do things the right way and still be successful, and that’s kind of the way I played my baseball career. It’s something that I’ve always believed in.”
Having played in the tail-end of Major League Baseball’s steroid era, Teixeira takes pride in having played the game the right way — clean. He ranks fifth on the all-time switch-hit home run list and is expected to receive some Hall of Fame consideration in a few years when he becomes eligible.
Baseball is a game of frustration and failure. Only a percentage of players actually get drafted or signed, and then an even smaller percentage make it to the major leagues.
Once a player makes it to the highest level, he has to deal with the marathon 162-game schedule, taxing travel, and injuries, all while making adjustments to the competition in order to have a lengthy career. The old cliché goes, if you fail seven-out-of-ten times, you’re considered a Hall-of-Famer.
Teixeira said he was able to establish a balance of not getting too low when he failed, and not getting too high when he succeeded.
“I was able to stay even-keeled [because of my faith]. One of the things I was most proud of in my career is, no matter what the slumps were, because they do come, I always got out of them,” he said. “There’s a lot of guys that have success at a young age and burn out really quickly, and I think my faith and my family really helped me have a long career and a successful career.”
Faith in God is something Teixeira learned at an early age, thanks in part to his uncle, Chuck Canterna, a Catholic priest.
“I think everyone kind of needs a consistent rock, if you will, in your family or your life that can teach you about God and not be emotional about what’s happening in your life,” Teixeira said, noting that his uncle helped keep him grounded and mindful of what’s important in life. He also credited his parents and high school principal as being instrumental growing up into adulthood.
During the last four years of his career, Teixeira dealt with multiple injuries before ultimately deciding to retire at the age of 36. Sitting on the bench at times, unable to help his team, was tough to deal with.
Because of that, Teixeira said, he started to think about what he would do after baseball. His faith helped him decide when to hang up his spikes.
“I just listened to God and tried to figure out, ‘Ok, where do you want me right now,’ and when I was 36 and the injuries were taking its toll, I think God was speaking to me and saying, ‘Hey, time to spend more time with your family and do other things,'” Teixeira said.
Teixeira, his wife Leigh and their three young children, continue to live in Greenwich.
“The reason we love Greenwich is because it’s so family friendly. It’s self-contained,” he said. “I enjoy being close to New York City, but also being in the woods. We’re 45 minutes from Manhattan, yet I’ve got deer and turkey running in my backyard. That’s very unique and we love it.”
Upon retirement, a lot of athletes miss the game and the competitiveness that comes with playing professionals sports.
In 2017, Teixeira signed on with ESPN as an in-studio analyst, enabling him to still experience the game he committed most of his life to.
While he misses hitting home runs, Teixeira doesn’t miss the road trips or the physical beating a season incurs. He’s competitive on the golf course now, and in the boardrooms of various organizations.
Teixeira joined the Board of Directors for Harlem RBI, now known as DREAM, back in 2010, and remains active with them.
“I grew up middle class and my parents always gave me everything I needed from a roof over my head, to sports equipment and educational opportunities,” he said. “What DREAM does is, it bridges a gap between kids that grew up without those opportunities, and the kind of people they can be through education, teamwork, after-school activities and summer activities.”
DREAM’s programs have helped over 2,000 kids in the New York area.
Teixeira is also a board member for the Greenwich International Film Festival. A self-proclaimed movie buff, Teixeira said he enjoys watching movies that make a difference.
“Our whole mission is supporting social change through film. We’re able to give back to a lot of organizations that do some really great things,” he said. “Whether it’s Alzheimer’s research to human trafficking, those types of things are really neat when you can have a film festival that can share their story with millions of people.”
Teixeira has also delved into the real estate business, starting a company called Urban Creek Partners. In 2008, along with a group of partners, he began to buy vacant industrial land with a 10-year plan in mind. They currently own 70 acres of mixed-use land in Atlanta, and hope to break ground next year.
For his career, Teixeira noted that he’s most proud of his accomplishments as a switch-hitter, as well as the fact that he hit 30 home runs and drove in 100 RBI in eight straight years.
“I look back and I’m almost like, ‘That’s impossible. I don’t know how I did that,'” he said. He often thinks about his home run in his first career All-Star game in 2005, his crucial game-winning home run against the Twins in the 2009 American League Division Series, or his final home run, a walk-off grand slam against the rival Boston Red Sox, in 2016.
But winning it all means the most to Teixeira.
“Winning a World Series means everything to me. It’s not easy at all. This is a very tough game where 30 teams every year are trying to win it all. The fact that we were the last team standing in 2009 was pretty special,” he said.
Not many people get to experience the kind of baseball career that Teixeira has had, and he’s currently embarking on a successful second career. It’s clear that faith is the commonality that has guided the two.
“My faith is the most important thing in my life. Everything I have is because of God,” he said.
For more information on the Greenwich Leadership Forum’s Annual Dinner and to register for the event, go to Greenwichleadershipforum.org.
