Leigh Teixeira steers her husband to Yankees
By on
January 7th, 2009
Teixeira, in his introductory news conference yesterday at the old Yankee Stadium, said he wasn’t sure he wanted to come to the Bronx until his wife, Leigh, decided for the couple that New York was the place they wanted to be.
Mark Teixeira sat down with his wife on Dec. 12 to have dinner, his regular Friday “date night” with Leigh at the Vaquero Club in Westlake, Texas.
“I’d been asking her for weeks and weeks, Where do you want to go? Where do you want me to play?” he related. “And she said, ‘I want you to be happy. I just want you to be happy.’ And finally, she said, ‘I want you to be a Yankee.’ So that’s when it was done. And once we got the contract figured out, it was a no-brainer.”
“The Yankees hadn’t made their decision yet, but that’s when we made our decision,” he said with a laugh.
“He was pushing me for an answer. I gave it,” Leigh said, giggling. “I always loved New York, and I thought it would be really special for him to be a Yankee.”
The free-agent first baseman officially joined the Yankees on Tuesday, finalizing a $180 million, eight-year deal initially agreed to Dec. 23, pending contract language and a physical
. Teixeira’s news conference might have been the last big event at old Yankee Stadium — the team is set to move on Jan. 23 across 161st Street to its new $1.3 billion ballpark. Workers were wheeling whirlpools out of the visiting clubhouse in anticipation of the move.
Teixeira had first been to Yankee Stadium when he was 8 or 9 years old. Don Mattingly was his favorite player, and Teixeira admitted, “I was in awe.”
“I was sad to see this place go,” he said wistfully. “I think everyone is going to miss Yankee Stadium.”
Watch video Mark Teixeira’s wife with Kimberly Jones: Leigh Teixeira is excited to see her husband become a Yankee.
Read more about Tex’s press conference and his love for Don Mattingly here.
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