Who

Third baseman for the Bronx Bombers and the recipient of the biggest contract in sports history, A-Rod is alternately loved and hated by Yankees fans.

Backstory

Born in Washington Heights, A-Rod spent part of his childhood living in the Dominican Republic before settling in Florida. He had the makings of a superstar as a student at Miami's Westminster Christian High School: Although he earned a baseball scholarship to attend the University of Miami, he opted to become eligible for the draft, and the Seattle Mariners chose him as their top overall pick in 1993.

He made his major league debut with the team as a shortstop at age 18. It wasn't until 1996, though—when he hit 36 home-runs and drove in 123 runs—that he really emerged as a star, and after several big years in Seattle, he signed a monster 10-year, $252 million contract with the Texas Rangers in 2000. But while he continued to produce for the Rangers—he won his first MVP award in 2003—his stay down South wasn't without controversy. Fans objected to his outsized salary and when the team's overall performance didn't improve much, they traded him to the Yankees for Alfonso Soriano and Joaquin Arias before the 2004 season. In deference to shortstop Derek Jeter, the Yankees moved A-Rod to third base, which is where he's been collecting those big, fat paychecks ever since.

Of note

Although he's generated fantastic numbers throughout his career, the knock on A-Rod has always been that he doesn't come through in the clutch, a fact compounded by the massive media attention that comes with playing in New York. The nadir of his career came in the 2006 playoffs, when he hit a paltry .071 as the Yanks lost to the Detroit Tigers and was dropped to eighth in the batting order for their final game. Of course, Rodriguez hasn't skirted the issue—he's said his playoff failings have led him to visit a number of psychotherapists, a rare admission for a professional athlete.

He put some of the criticism to rest with a dominating season in 2007, but when his agent Scott Boras announced in October that A-Rod would be opting out of his mega-contract, the drama really started. He took a drubbing from Yankees fans for his perceived greed ($252 million wasn't enough?) and his disloyalty—before opting out, he'd repeatedly stated his intention to remain a Yankee for a long time to come. He managed to smooth things over (a bit) by publicly chastising Boras for his handling of the situation and signing a new 10-year, $275 million contract with the Yankees' front office in December 2007.

Close call

Yankees management got a scare when his Gulfstream G-II skidded off the runway in Burbank, California, in 2006, just days after teammate Cory Lidle crashed into a building on the Upper East Side.

Personal

A-Rod married former high school teacher Cynthia Scurtis in 2002. They had two daughters, Natasha and Ella, before splitting in 2008. Since the split, Alex has sold the couple's Trump Park Avenue apartment and moved into a rental apartment at 15 Central Park West. He also owns mansions in Dallas and Miami, as well as two condos in the Hudson Tea Building in Hoboken, the building that's home to Eli Manning and Jon Corzine.

Scandal

A-Rod's marriage to Cynthia spectacularly imploded in July 2008, after rumors began spreading that he'd been in a secret relationship with Madonna for months. Before that, he'd been caught leaving an all-nude Toronto strip club with Joslyn Morse, a former stripper and Playboy model, back in May 2007. In fact, he's something of a lapdance connoisseur: He's been a patron of joints like Scores, the Hustler Club, and the swingers' club Iniquity (although there he was reportedly just watching, not playing). And it's not just strippers. In 2005, MLB commissioner Bud Selig had to ask A-Rod to discontinue his habit of visiting illegal gambling dens.

No joke

He flosses his teeth four times a day.