It’s two hours before the phone call only one percent of MLB players ever receives, and CC Sabathia, at his home in Alpine, is still the most relaxed person in the room.
Ever the genial host, Sabathia is warmly greeting guests to his home, posing for photos, laughing that booming, signature laugh that echoed in big league clubhouses through 19 seasons.
By early evening, a party of close friends and family was gathered in Sabathia's living room when his wife Amber's cell rang. Placed on speaker, Jack O'Connell, secretary of the Baseball Writers' Association, delivered the anticipated news.
On his first ballot, five years after throwing his final big-league pitch, CC Sabathia was headed to Cooperstown. "Thank you,'' said Sabathia, smiling as the crowd around him burst into cheers and applause.
What does one of baseball’s best left-handed pitchers want to do next, after making the Hall of Fame?
“Get good at golf,’’ said Sabathia, 44, punctuated by a roaring laugh that could shake loose the icicles outside his front door on this frigid, memorable late January day.
Sabathia never expected to become a New York Yankee when he entered free agency in 2008 as the game’s most coveted starter.
He’d never pitched with thoughts about Cooperstown until the very end of his career, with statistical milestones in reach and friends pointing out his place among the game’s greats.
“To win every single time out, to take the ball…to be that good teammate and be there for the guys -that’s all I ever wanted,’’ said Sabathia. “And that’s gotten me to this place.’’
The consummate teammate
In congratulating Sabathia on his Hall of Fame election, the statements of former teammates and Yankees executives struck a familiar tone.
“He was such a gamer…and he was always there. He made himself available to everyone,’’ catcher Jorge Posada said of the 6-foot-6, 300-pound ace of the staff and team organizer, arranging dinners and springing for suites at NBA games, inviting all.
“He was such a great connector in the clubhouse,’’ said Joe Girardi, his first Yankees manager. “And he brought teams together.’’
“You’d be hard-pressed to find someone he played with who didn’t consider him one of the best teammates and fiercest competitors they ever shared a clubhouse,’’ said current Yankees manager Aaron Boone.
That tells Sabathia’s Cooperstown story beyond stats, though a chat with MLB Network host and ex-player Harold Reynolds after the 2017 AL Championship Series put the numbers in perspective.
“It was such a tough loss, I was so down and out that I was ready to retire,’’ Sabathia said of Houston’s seven-game ALCS win, later to be tainted by the Astros’ sign-stealing scandal.
But Reynolds called Sabathia and mentioned “how close I was to 250 wins, and how important it was,’’ Sabathia said. “He started talking about Bob Gibson and 3,000 strikeouts and there’s only two Black pitchers (to reach that figure) and you could be the third.
“That’s when I really thought, maybe this is something I can do. That’s what put me over the top to play the next two years.’’
An easy transition to the Yankees
“It’s kind of fitting. I threw until I couldn’t anymore,’’ Sabathia said after Game 4 of the 2019 ALCS, another bitter October loss to Houston.
That night, Sabathia walked off the Yankee Stadium mound to a heartfelt standing ovation, nursing a partly ...
