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Alex Rodriguez’s most important accomplishment in life was never his record-breaking professional baseball career — it was raising his two daughters, Natasha and Ella. The New York Yankees legend welcomed his daughters during his six-year marriage to their mother, Cynthia Scurtis Rodriguez. While the former couple split in July 2008, they have remained united in coparenting their daughters over the years. In June 2025, Alex discussed the challenging adjustment he was facing as his daughters transitioned from adolescence into young adulthood. “They’re so busy that when I get a little date for like an awesome dinner, I’m so fired up,” he told Parents.com. “It’s just amazing to see them develop with high self-esteem, good purpose, and good intention in their life. And it’s great to see them strive to reach their goals.” Keep scrolling for a look at A-Rod’s parenting journey with his daughters Natasha and Ella. Natasha Alexander Rodriguez Alex and Cynthia welcomed their first baby, daughter Natasha, on November 18, 2004. The family affectionately refers to Natasha by the nickname “Tashi.” Cynthia revealed to the YES Network’s YESterdays that Alex was even more nervous for their daughter’s birth than she was. “The one nurse had a cold cloth on his head. The other nurse had the blood pressure [cuff] on his arm. And my mother was like rubbing his back. And he is passed out on a couch. And I am there, in the middle of labor,” she recalled. “And really, I am not being paid much attention to besides the doctor and a couple of nurses. And he is there, moaning. In between pushing, I am going, ‘Honey, are you OK?’ and ‘Are you breathing? Are you OK?’” Cynthia quipped that she should have anticipated Alex’s reaction to her labor since he was always nervous in medical situations. “As tough and big as he seems, he is real wimpy around doctors or any type of medical situation,” she revealed. “I don’t know why I thought the birth of our child would be different. In the middle of the night, I realized that I needed to go to the hospital. I wake him up. The first thing that comes out of his mouth, ‘Can we call your mother?’ … A few hours later, I said, ‘I think you can call my mom now.’ Uh, and the color came back to his face when I told him he could call my mom.” As Natasha grew up, she pursued a passion for music and even wore her dad’s jersey as she sang the national anthem at an MLB game between the Miami Marlins and the Philadelphia Phillies at LoanDepot Park in Miami in September 2022. A-Rod reunited with his ex-wife, Cynthia, at their daughter’s high school graduation in May 2023. Natasha enrolled at the University of Michigan later that year to study musical theater. “My only condition [for her studying musical theatre] is because all these young actors want to bypass college and I’m always saying, like, ‘You can [study] drama, you can do whatever you want, but as long as you’re taking your business classes at Michigan; they have a great business school,’” Rodriguez exclusively told Us Weekly in August 2023. “And that was [the] deal.” Following Natasha’s high school graduation, the Minnesota Timberwolves co-owner confessed to feeling nervous about his eldest daughter going off to college. “I can’t believe it. I’m gonna drop her off in a few weeks in Ann Arbor, and I’m both incredibly proud of Natasha but also incredibly sad that my first baby is leaving us,” Rodriguez told Us at the time. “And you know, for us dads, they’re always our babies — even if they’re 30 years old.” In September 2023, Alex admitted to Us that his ex-wife, Cynthia, worried that he was texting Natasha “too much” during her freshman year. “It’s hard. For the first time in 18 years, I don’t have my two girls with me at dinner,” he acknowledged. “The good news is I get to spend more time with [younger daughter], Ella. I guess there’s a silver lining everywhere.” Natasha pulled off the ultimate surprise in May 2024 when she visited Alex courtside at a Minnesota Timberwolves game in Dallas after wrapping up her freshman year. A-Rod shared a video of him giving Natasha a huge hug during a break in the action between the Timberwolves and the Dallas Mavericks. “I could not believe it!” he wrote via Instagram. “Ella and @thenatasharodriguez you two got me so good.” Ella Alexander Rodriguez Alex and Cynthia welcomed their youngest daughter, Ella, in April 2008. “We are thrilled with the birth of our second daughter and the blessing of having two beautiful, healthy daughters in our lives,” Alex said in a statement at the time. As his daughter entered middle school, Alex acknowledged the ways Ella “continue[d] to amaze me and fill me with so much pride.” “You’re not just a sixth-grader now, you’re a beautiful young woman who’s already on her way to taking the world by storm,” he wrote via Instagram in June 2019. “You make me strive to be a better father every day and it is a privilege to watch you shoot for the stars.” Alex was on “daddy duty” in March 2024 when he accompanied Ella to see Olivia Rodrigo’s Guts World Tour concert at the Kaseya Center in Miami. “Alright, I’ve been filming all day, I’ve never been more tired. Now I’m at a … Rodrigo?” he joked, before Ella corrected her dad that they were going to see “Olivia Rodrigo.” “Surrounded by 20,000 teenage girls, and all I want to do is go to sleep,” he jokingly added. The former shortstop and third baseman celebrated Ella’s 17th birthday in April 2025 with a lovely tribute via Instagram. “Happy Birthday to my beautiful daughter Ella. ❤️You bring so much light to my life and I am so proud of you in every way,” he wrote. Coparenting With Cynthia Scurtis The former couple met at a Miami gym in 1996. Cynthia admitted to the Yes Network in 2008 that she had no clue about her future husband’s celebrity status at first. “I know he played baseball, because everybody in the gym said, ‘Do you know who that is? And he plays baseball’ or whatever,” she explained. “I didn’t grow up in a sports-oriented family. So, I wasn’t aware that you could have an entire livelihood off of a sport. So when they would say, ‘Oh, he plays baseball,’ I always think, ‘Oh, I wonder what else he does’ — like ‘that’s a nice hobby’ — but what does he really do?” They tied the knot in 2002 and ultimately welcomed two daughters before Cynthia filed for divorce in July 2008, citing “emotional abandonment” as the cause of the split. They reached a settlement two months later and have since rebuilt a friendly coparenting relationship. “[Our daughters are] very grounded. They’re great, strong young women,” he told People in November 2025. “They have a wonderful mother, great support system, their dedication, the way they treat people, the way they honor family, on and on and on.” He opened up to the “Raising the Bar” podcast in January 2021 about the way he and Cynthia addressed their divorce and dating other people with their daughters. “We positioned what could be perceived as a negative into a positive, by saying to the girls, ‘Look, now you don’t have one house, you have two houses,’” he recalled. “‘You don’t have two parents, you have four parents. Lucky you, the more the merrier.’” Alex famously dated Jennifer Lopez, Kate Hudson, Cameron Diaz and Jaclyn Cordeiro following his divorce, while his ex-wife entered into a long-term relationship with real estate advisor Angel Nicolas. (Cynthia and Nicolas share a daughter, Camilla, who was born in 2016.) He looked back on his own fatherhood journey in a June 2025 interview with Parenting.com where he expressed hope that Natasha and Ella learned from his past. “I’ve gone through a lot of ups and downs. I’ve always been very transparent about my mistakes,” he said. “I hope they are learning from daddy’s mistakes, and hopefully becoming a better version. And just obviously, the hard work and how important family is.”
