Mark Teixeira stands waiting at his locker in the Texas Rangers’* clubhouse at exactly the time we agreed to meet. I reintroduce myself after having briefly met the 27-year-old first baseman the previous day, and he pulls up a chair for me and pats it. His actions tell me several things: Mark Teixeira is a man of his word. He’s disciplined. And he cares about speaking about Christ, so much so that he wants me to stay for a while.
Discipline
“Mark’s definitely on the straight and narrow,” says Kevin Millwood, a Rangers starting pitcher. “He’s a very disciplined guy in everything he does. And for as long as the season is, it’s hard to be that disciplined. He’s a hard worker, and he’s as good as he is for a reason.”
“I’ve always tried to be disciplined,” Teixeira says. “If you’re not, then it’s easy to stray from the straight road. I always did my homework and took my extra swings or extra ground balls.”
Hard work has paid off throughout Teixeira’s career. He played 140 career college games at Georgia Tech from 1998 to 2001 and hit a nearly unheard of .409, making him only the second player in Atlantic Coast Conference history to post a career average of .400 or better. In 2000, Teixeira won the Dick Howser Trophy as the National Collegiate Player of the Year. He was also chosen by Baseball America and The Sporting News as Player of the Year, named the ACC Player of the Year and earned first team All-America honors.
Teixeira missed most of his senior year with the Yellow Jackets due to a fractured right ankle, but that didn’t stop the Rangers from selecting him in the first round (fifth overall) of the 2001 draft. He spent 2002 in the minor leagues and was named by Baseball America as the Rangers’ Minor League Player of the Year. He started the 2003 season in the majors and excelled at that level as well, hitting 26 home runs and driving in 84 runs. As a result, Teixeira was named to the Topps Major League All-Star Rookie team.
In his first three seasons with the Rangers, Teixeira hit 107 home runs, drove in 340 runs, posted a .282 average and a .362 on-base percentage. In 2005, he became just the fifth player in major league history to hit 100 home runs in his first three seasons. (The others to accomplish that feat are Ralph Kiner, Albert Pujols, Eddie Mathews and Joe DiMaggio.) Teixeira’s 144 RBIs in 2005 were the most in one season by a switch-hitter in major league history. He won a Gold Glove and was chosen to be part of the 2005 All-Star team.
Leader
Teixeira knows that hard work doesn’t always lead to such success, but he also knows that success rarely happens without hard work. His father was in the Navy, and he credits his parents for showing him the right way to live.
“At a very young age I learned about Jesus and how important your faith is,” Teixeira says. “My parents were definitely the most influential people in my life, especially when I was a kid, and they taught me the right values.”
And Teixeira has taken those values into the Rangers’ clubhouse. He’s already viewed as a leader even though he’s been in the major leagues for only five seasons.
“Mark is a quiet person,” says John Wasdin, a former teammate and current pitcher with the Pittsburgh Pirates. “So he does a lot of leading by example in the way he carries himself and in the way he lives his life. He doesn’t say, ‘Hey, boys, we need to do this. This is what chapter such and such [in the Bible] says.’ But he’s a leader by action, and people look up to him for that.”
If a player is slacking on the field, Teixeira doesn’t hesitate to let him know.
“It’s constructive criticism,” Wasdin says. “He’ll say things like ‘Hey, step it up’ or ‘Let’s go!’ He’s not beating anybody over the head, but he’s saying it in a way that you respect. He’s a young player, but he plays like he’s got 10 or 12 years in the big leagues.”
Like many other Christian athletes, Teixeira says it’s hard to get involved with a good church during the season, because he travels so much, but he faithfully attends baseball chapel services. About five to 10 other Rangers attend regularly, and they encourage each other spiritually.
“We hang out,” Teixeira says. “We go to dinner. If there’s anything going on, or a friend may be in trouble or someone’s hurt, we give him a call and make sure everything’s OK. And every Sunday we have our chapel service, and we get together and pray for those who need our prayers.”
Whenever the Braves take the field, Teixeira does so knowing that he represents Christ.
“I try to live and play baseball the way that I think the Lord would want me to,” Teixeira says. “It’s tough sometimes. It’s a competitive game. I try to do the right things on the field and off the field. And there are some people who accept that and follow the lead and other people who don’t. You just keep trying to set good examples, and hopefully people will turn toward the good and right way and follow.”
But he doesn’t expect everybody to accept his lifestyle.
“Any time you stand up for what you believe in, people who don’t see things your way are going to say things or look at you differently,” Teixeira says. “But that shouldn’t change the way you act. Hopefully, if I keep doing the right things, people might look and say, ‘That is the right way to live.’ ”
Struggles
Teixeira is careful to avoid falling into patterns of sin. Living the life of a professional athlete can present many such opportunities.
“It’s not just the clubhouse environment [that can cause problems], but the entire world,” Teixeira says. “Every day, you walk down the street and you see things. You watch a movie or TV—so it’s just a matter of trying to focus on the good things and trying to block out distractions and always relying on your faith.”
Some of those good things in his life include his wife, Georgia, and their 2-year-old son.
“My wife and my little boy keep me on the right path,” Teixeira says. “Wanting to be a good Christian for them and wanting my boy to grow up to be a good Christian really makes me stay focused.
“We always try to pray together and do devotionals. It’s tough, because we’re not always together. I’m on the road for 90 or 100 days a year. But we’ve bought our little boy a ton of Christian books about prayers for children. He may not understand yet, but we’re trying to give him the childhood that we had.”
With all of Teixeira’s on-field success and his obvious concern for his family, it might be easy to think that he doesn’t struggle with failure. But that’s not true.
“As a hitter, you are going to fail more often than you’re going to succeed,” Teixeira says. “It’s tough. You might have three of four games in a row where you don’t get a hit, and you think, Is my career over? Is this ever going to get better? Then you realize it’s not the most important thing. You call your wife and see your baby, and you realize that they are most important, and your faith is most important.”
It is easy to understand why Teixeira is respected and looked up to by teammates. The first baseman is a humble man who works hard, loves his family and teammates and wants to glorify God in everything he says and does.
“Watch the way he carries himself,” Millwood says. “That’s good for anybody to watch.” 
* Mark Teixeira was traded to the Atlanta Braves after this story was published.
