Favorite moments from the Yankee career of CC Sabathia

01/22/2025 10:00 AM

With CC headed to Cooperstown, here are some of the things to love about the former Yankees' ace.

Tuesday night featured the announcement of this year's Baseball Hall of Fame class, which included one very proud Yankee of recent years. CC Sabathia will be part of the Class of 2025 after receiving 86.8 percent of the vote.

After signing with the Yankees ahead of the 2009 season, Sabathia became a much loved member of the Yankees. Besides helping them to the '09 World Series title and numerous other playoff runs as the team's ace, Sabathia was a clubhouse leader and, by all accounts, a pretty beloved teammate by those who played with him in New York. Also, between him regularly still publicly supporting the Yankees and talking about wanting them to be the team on his Hall of Fame plaque, the feeling appears mutual.

As a Yankee fan who was just coming into adulthood around the time of his signing, I obviously have plenty of fond memories of Sabathia. If we're talking just plainly on the field moments, for me, it's hard to top Game 5 of the 2012 ALCS.

After the Yankees and Orioles split the first four games, Sabathia was given the ball for the do-or-die Game 5 at Yankee Stadium. Not only was he given the ball, but he didn't give it back. On that night, Sabathia ended up throwing a complete game, allowing just one run on four hits.

While we've seen other gems from Yankees starting pitchers in the playoffs in the years since, that remains the most recent complete game from one of them. Considering the way teams use pitchers these days, it may also be the last, unless some radical reimagining of starters and bullpens happens someday. In the moment and now, that outing feels like something special.

There's plenty of other moments of him on the mound that you could choose besides that one too. He was also the 2009 ALCS MVP after all, for his excellence in cutting down the then-playoff nemesis Angels.

However as mentioned, the thing about Sabathia and the Yankees is that his influence goes beyond him just having good days on the mound. He was typically never one to back down to other teams, and one particular incident against the Rays showed that.

In one late season 2018 game against the Rays, then Yankee catcher Austin Romine got buzzed by a pitch from Rays reliever Andrew Kittredge. Sabathia had started the game, and when he returned to the mound the following inning, he hit the first Tampa Bay batter, Jesús Sucre, earning himself an ejection. On his way back to the clubhouse after getting tossed, Sabathia had some words for Kittridge and the Rays. The quote is a bit blue, but you shouldn't have too hard a time lip reading it.

One of the most remarkable things about that moment was that Sabathia did it knowing he would get ejected. The ejection also came in the sixth inning, with Sabathia needing to get through seven frames in the game to reach a $500,000 contract incentive. However with that game set to be his final start of the regular season, he clearly cared more about his teammates that he did reaching that last inning, which says all you need to know about his leadership qualities.

Lastly, there's much reason to love Sabathia as a human being. He left the Yankees ahead of the 2015 playoff run to enter rehab to deal with alcohol abuse. While some more old school people might roll their eyes and just act like you can play through that, obviously getting yourself right in a human sense is far more important than anything he could've done on the mound that year. Frankly, the Yankees probably weren't going far in the playoffs with or without him, and it's way better to see him around and seemingly doing great now than it would if he tried to look the other way past his struggles.

Also in the human being area is seeing how dedicated a family man he is. There are other ways to see that on display, but one big one is seeing how far he goes for Halloween every year. Not only does he dress up in an elaborate costume with his family every year, but they also welcome trick-or-treaters with full size candy bars. That's a good man and neighbor.

As a pitcher, I think CC was plenty worthy of a Hall of Fame induction on his own, but it's truly wonderful to see considering the human being he is as well.