Metro

Hurler’s haunted by harrowing childhood

Francisco Rodriguez has a World Series ring, the single-season record for saves and a $37 million contract, but the Mets closer remains troubled over the prize that eludes him most — a stable family.

It has haunted him from the very start, since his childhood in the slums of Caracas, Venezuela, when his mother and father divorced and handed the little boy off to his dad’s parents, a move that also split him from four of his seven siblings.

“I’m grateful they gave me life,” Rodriguez said once of his parents. “But I can’t be grateful to them for anything else, because they never gave me an education, love, respect, things every human being needs.”

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Despite the hardships of poverty and the emotional scars of abandonment, Rodriguez excelled as a baseball player, reaching heights that boys in Caracas could only dream about.

Last year, he and his girlfriend, Daian Peña, had twins, Angeline and Francisco Jr.

But the pitcher’s inner demons are apparently still getting the better of him.

Rodriguez — known as K-Rod for his many strikeouts — was arrested Wednesday night for allegedly assaulting Peña’s father, Carlos, in a Citi Field hallway after a painful Mets loss.

Already angry at riding the bench while his teammates blew a lead, K-Rod pummeled his girlfriend’s dad when he came to her defense during an argument, according to police.

“It’s just some personal issues that they had, and things got out of hand,” said K-Rod’s agent, Paul Kinzer, yesterday. “He’s not happy with what’s happened, obviously.”

Prosecutors said Rodriguez has a history of domestic violence, a charge his lawyer denies. But there was no denying his string of professional run-ins.

Just last month, Rodriguez had a heated exchange with home-plate umpire Phil Cuzzi during a ninth-inning meltdown in San Francisco. The situation didn’t escalate into a fight, but K-Rod was animated in his disgust.

In May, Rodriguez nearly came to blows with his bullpen coach, Randy Niemann.

Last July, he also got into a shouting match with Tony Bernazard, a Mets executive, on a team bus in Atlanta.

And last June, he went ballistic on Yankees reliever Brian Bruney, after the Bronx Bomber called Rodriguez’s chest-thumping, fist-pumping theatrics “a tired act.”

But some of the harshest criticism against Rodriguez came in 2008, when he turned down a $30 million contract offer from the Los Angeles Angels. He left the team a year later, and signed a three-year, $37 million contract with the Mets.

At the time, he said his critics didn’t understand him.

“People don’t know the humiliation, the scorn and the bad things you’ve endured,” Rodriguez told the Los Angeles Times.

“They don’t know about your childhood, what it’s like to live in a barrio, what it’s like to go hungry, what it’s like not to have a pair of shoes, or money to buy medicine when you’re sick. I’ve gone through all that.”

Additional reporting by Mark Hale

leonard.greene@nypost.com