With Golden Heart, Yankees’ CC Sabathia is the Perfect Roberto Clemente Award Nominee
You didn’t need advanced understanding of human nature to realize what was happening at Yankee Stadium on Sept. 22. It wasn’t just the final home game of the regular season; it was also CC Sabathia’s farewell to his teammates, club officials and mostly to the fans who’d spent a full decade showing their love to the old war horse.
Now it was Sabathia’s turn to pay it back: he stood at home plate watching a video tribute that played on the giant scoreboard in center field. There were testimonials from CC’s teammates, his peers around the league and from Yankees ownership. In terms of sheer sentimentality, the kind that made grown men blink hard, nothing came close to the taped messages from his mother, wife and his four children.
All read letters to Sabathia, thanking him for the years of love and support as a father and husband. The big lefty just melted – he wept openly. In front of a crowd of nearly 50,000 fans CC wiped away the tears as they rolled down his face. Who knew this fierce warrior, potentially on his way to Cooperstown, N.Y., after a 19-year career, was such a softy?
Members of the organization all return the same verdict about Sabathia: not only was he an elite pitcher who racked up 250 wins and 3,000 strikeouts, just the 14th hurler in the game’s history to do so, but he was a diplomat in the clubhouse, a mentor to younger Yankees and an all-around good guy whose generosity extended into the community.
It was no surprise, then, that the Yankees nominated Sabathia for the prestigious Roberto Clemente Award not once, but twice in the final two years of his career in 2018 and 2019. Doing so said plenty about how the Yankees felt about Sabathia’s heart and what had motivated him all along.
Not just winning, of course, but helping others – particularly kids who are disadvantaged and looking for a break. Just like a young man named Carston Charles Sabathia many years ago in northern California.
“I was once that kid who was looking for a safe place to go after school,” Sabathia said one day this summer. “That search led the future star to the local Boys and Girls Club in Vallejo, Calif., where he learned the principles of hard work, honesty and kindness. That relationship exists to this day, as Sabathia now speaks to clubs around the country preaching those same values.
No wonder the Yankees considered Sabathia the best candidate for the Clemente Award. To hear his teammates talk about it, it’s been a no-brainer all along.
“I remember meeting CC the year I got drafted and how he treated me,” Aaron Judge said, harkening back to 2013. “The Yankees were in (Oakland) and they brought me into the clubhouse to meet the players. Obviously I was nervous, I didn’t feel like I belonged there. But CC made me feel right at home.
“The thing was, CC was pitching that day. A lot of pitchers don’t want to be bothered before they take the ball, not by anyone, especially some kid who he might not ever play with. CC didn’t know who I was, but that didn’t matter to him. He invited me to sit with him in the lunchroom. It was like I was part of the team. I never forgot that.”
There are a million similar stories about Sabathia sprinkled throughout the organization, not to mention with the thousands of kids whose lives he’s touched. As he put it, “I’ve always felt it was important to give young kids the same chances I had. I’m not just talking about kids who are trying to become athletes. I mean anyone who wants to learn and grow. That’s who I’m trying to help.”
The Clemente Award is the perfect way to honor a man with a boundless soul: it was created in 1971, then renamed in 1973 in memory of the legendary Pirates slugger who gave his life attempting to help earthquake victims in Nicaragua. As Major League Baseball so eloquently puts it, the award is bestowed upon the player who “best exemplifies the game of baseball, sportsmanship, community and the individual’s contribution to his team.”
Sabathia has done more than just talk. His Foundation, called “PitCCh In,” was established in 2008 with the help of his wife Amber. Together they’ve created three signature programs to provide backpacks and school supplies for students and field renovations for youth sports leagues nationally. And Sabathia has never strayed from his Boys and Girls Club roots.
During his final season, he sponsored local chapters in San Francisco, Kansas City, Cleveland, Chicago, Minnesota, Boston, Seattle, Los Angeles, Detroit, Toronto, Tampa and Texas. Everyone who listened to Sabathia speak came away with the same sense of community that Judge did six years ago: With the smile and big bear of a laugh CC has a way of making people feel like they’re part of his team.
That was no minor accomplishment in the middle of a pennant race. The Yankees were busy trying to get back to the World Series for the first time since 2009. Sabathia was fighting his own war with an arthritic right knee, so badly hobbled that at times he said the pain-level was a “10.” Eight was considered a good day.
No one would’ve blamed Sabathia for being cranky or if he’d chosen to shelve charity work altogether until he was finished with baseball.
But that would’ve meant putting himself before the kids, which would’ve been impossible. Not if you knew Sabathia. Not if you saw him crying that day at Yankee Stadium and realized that left arm has been only the second-most important part of his arsenal. You can guess what’s No. 1.
Featured Image: CC Sabathia Instagram