Alex Rodriguez and wife push fashionable cause

Alex and Cynthia Rodriguez at the AROD Family Foundation “Haute Lunch” event on Sept. 5, 2007. (photo by Yuan-Kwan Chan / Meniscus Magazine)

The New York Yankees may be clinging to their A.L. Wild Card lead, but that didn’t stop Alex Rodriguez from taking time out during his team’s home stand against the Seattle Mariners to attend his foundation’s fashion charity event on Sept. 5.

Timed to coincide with the start of New York Fashion Week – and what would end mere minutes before Yankees trainers forced the slugger back downtown to receive an MRI on an injured right ankle – Rodriguez and his wife Cynthia hosted a fashion show and luncheon fundraiser benefiting the AROD Family Foundation. The Foundation supports underprivileged children in New York and the couple’s hometown of Miami, among other related activities.

A relaxed Rodriguez mingled with guests, then briefly addressed the crowd, preferring to praise event emcee Suzyn Waldman (the first female full-time Major League Baseball broadcaster) and to leave the fashion- and sponsor-gushing to his wife. Cynthia lauded Paul Labrecque Salon (“who was responsible for my hair and make-up – I wouldn’t look like this without them,” she said), Graff Diamonds (Cynthia recalled her introduction to the brand while strolling along Madison Avenue with Alex six years ago and seeing these “beautiful, beautiful diamonds in the window”), and designer Nicolas Felizola. Felizola’s fashion show was the delayed denouement to a two-hour-plus event at Daniel, an Upper East Side restaurant. His Spring 2008 collection, an understated if somewhat unremarkable series of women’s wear save one male model’s disheveled look, featured solid colors, vertical lines and ribbed edges.

(And the rest of A-Rod’s day? After his MRI, he returned to the Bronx that evening and hit two home runs…both in the seventh inning of a 10-3 victory over Seattle. He became the first Yankee to accomplish the double-homer-in-one-inning feat in more than 30 years.)

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all photos by Yuan-Kwan Chan / Meniscus Magazine