New Haven Register (Sunday) (New Haven, CT)
Sabathia open, honest in appearance at SCSU
NEW HAVEN — CC Sabathia didn’t want to be a New York Yankee.
In fact, when he became a free agent following the 2008 season, he called just about any team that would listen to ask if they were interested in his services. Too much drama in New York, he reasoned, what with a move to the new Yankee Stadium and tensions in the clubhouse between Derek Jeter and A-Rod.
“I wanted to go to the Dodgers,” the Vallejo, Calif. native recalled.
But the Yankees really wanted him, so much so that Brian Cashman flew out to his home shortly after the baseball’s winter meetings, sat with Sabathia and his wife, Amber, on their couch and promised him he’d love playing in New York.
He also told him he needed Sabathia’s leadership to unite the clubhouse. If he didn’t like it, he could opt out in three years.
Sabathia, nudged by his wife to go where he was wanted, signed a seven-year, $147 million deal.
“Best decision of my life,” he recalled on Friday at Southern Connecticut State’s Lyman Center
for the Performing Arts.
That was one of several stories Sabathia shared with an audience of about 500 in an hourlong question-and-answer appearance moderated by former ESPN personality Rob Parker, an SCSU alum.
Sabathia regaled the crowd with numerous stories, told with candor and often punctuated by his trademark booming laugh.
He told the story of how the Cleveland Indians’ organization was split on whether the big, 20year-old should begin his rookie season with the major league club or with the Triple-A squad. No one told him a thing, and the
Indians had left spring training when Sabathia was at a Florida gas station with his dad and got a call from Indians’ manager Charlie Manuel telling him he had made the big-league roster. Many tears ensued.
The tears also rolled after Cleveland had squandered a 3-1 series lead and lost to the Red Sox in the 2007 ALCS, effectively ending the Tribe’s run of success.
Two years later, Sabathia was pitching the Yankees to a World Series title.
Sabathia the crowd. revealed plenty to Toughest hitter he
faced? Manny Ramirez. Hitter he could never get out? Evan Longoria. Smartest player he ever played with? Roberto Alomar.
But he was even more open when Parker asked him about his bout with alcoholism that began when he took his first drink at 14 and culminated with a trip to rehab just before the 2015 postseason.
He vividly recalled the events leading up to his darkest hour. The Yankees had clinched a postseason berth in Boston, but he didn’t take a sip of champagne in the clubhouse. On the flight home, however, someone gave him a cask of white Hennessy. And he drank it all.
The following day in Baltimore, he drank all day. There was more drinking the following day. The next day he had a bullpen to throw at Camden Yards, and for the first time in his career, he arrived at a ballpark drunk.
Sabathia went to Dellin Betances and Chris Young, his best friends on the team and still close friends to this day, and confided in them that he felt he needed to go to rehab. Shocked at first, both players quickly concurred that, if that was what he felt he needed to do, he should do it.
“To that point, baseball had been above everything in my life, even my family,” Sabathia recalled. “I was fortunate to have good people supporting me to make changes in my life.”
Prior to the Q&A, Sabathia met with players from the SCSU baseball team, as well as a group of players from local youth travel programs.He answered questions from “Who was the easier manager to play for, Aaron Boone or Joe Girardi?” (Boone, since he related to younger players better), to “Who’s the best player he’s ever seen.”
“(Shohei) Ohtani,” Sabathia replied, matter-offactly. “He’s the best player
who ever lived.”
Sabathia also provided a shining example of an inner-city kid who overcame the odds to become extremely successful. That’s why Angel Ramos, head baseball coach at Wilbur Cross who also runs the City Angels travel program in New Haven, brought several of his City Angels players.
“This is good for our kids, to understand that they have to work hard for baseball or whatever they want to do in life,” Ramos said. “CC comes from the inner city, too. You’ve got to choose to play a sport and do good, and stay out of the streets. You’ve got to make the right choices that are going to take you to another level.”
A.J. Felix, 16, of Wallingford, who plays for City Angels, agreed.
“It shows that no matter where you’re from and no matter your background, you can make it, no matter what.”
SCSU basketball coach Scott Burrell brought a few of his players to the event. Burrell initially approached Sabathia to make the appearance while playing a round of golf at Hudson National Golf Club in New York.
“Your story is amazing,” Burrell told him. “Kids need to hear it, especially the situation kids are under now, a lot of mental health issues, thoughts of not making it in life. He made something positive out of something negative.”
So there was Sabathia on Friday night at the SCSU campus, open and honest about a 19-year career that featured a World Series title, an ALCS MVP, a Cy Young award, 251 career wins and over 3,000 strikeouts.
A Hall of Fame career? He’ll be on the ballot for the first time in a little over a year.
“It’s hard not to think about it,” he admitted. “There’s nothing I can do about it. I played my career, the numbers are the numbers. We’ll see what happens.”