When former Indians ace pitcher CC Sabathia announced the 2019 season would be his final one in Major League Baseball, he began a year full of lasts, a list that will grow by one on Saturday.
Now with the New York Yankees, Sabathia will make his final regular season start at Progressive Field, where his prolific career began in 2001.
"It’s like home," the 38-year-old told reporters prior to the opener of a three-game series on Friday.
Chosen by the Indians in the first round of the 1998 MLB Draft out of Vallejo, California, and instead of pursuing a football career at UCLA, Sabathia quickly worked his way through the Indians’ farm system and made his Major League debut during the 2001 season.
Sabathia went 17-5 over that first year and finished runner-up in the voting for the American League Rookie of the Year. Over seven and a half seasons with the Tribe, Sabathia posted a 106-71 record (.599 winning percentage) with a 3.83 earned run average over 1,528.2 innings of work in 237 appearances, all starts. He registered 1,265 strikeouts (sixth most in club history), made three AL All-Star teams, and helped Cleveland make the postseason twice, including 2007 when they made it all the way to Game 7 of the AL Championship Series.
"It was a great time, a great time for me," Sabathia said. "I was out here early today and just walking around and it’s weird, man. I don’t have like memories good or bad either way. It’s just memories. It’s a weird thing and it just feels so comfortable to be in this park."
Sabathia’s crowning individual achievement came during that 2007 season, when he became the first Indian since Gaylord Perry in 1972 to take home the AL Cy Young Award. He led the league with 34 starts and 241 innings of work, and despite the heavy workload, posted a 19-7 record and 3.21 ERA along with 209 strikeouts against just 37 walks allowed in 2007. Unfortunately, he struggled in the postseason, losing both of his starts in the ALCS as the Tribe blew a three games to one lead to the Boston Red Sox and missed the World Series.
It would also be Sabathia's last full season in Cleveland, as he was traded to the Milwaukee Brewers in the summer of 2008 with the team out of contention and free agency looming. While the deal would end up netting future All-Star Michael Brantley, many still haven't forgiven the Indians for letting CC go.
While CC may say he doesn't have many memories of his time with the Tribe, his recollections and actions seem to contradict that: He visited his old home and neighbors in Westlake earlier Friday, and later gushed about the privilege of meeting with former Indians ace pitchers like Mudcat Grant and the late legend Bob Feller early in his career.
"They taught me what it was to try to be a great pitcher—Mudcat to be an African-American pitcher, what it meant. What it represented to be a black ace," he said. "So I carried that the whole time and I knew what I wanted to be.”
After dominating with the Brewers and leading them to the postseason, Sabathia signed a lucrative free agent contract with the Yankees, where he has spent the last 11 years and made three more trips to the All-Star Game along with a World Series championship in 2009.
Overall, Sabathia enters his final start at Progressive Field with a 249-155 career record (.616 winning percentage) and 3.70 earned run average over 3,517.1 innings of work in 547 appearances, all of which have been starts. Earlier this year, Sabathia also became just the 17th pitcher in baseball history to collect 3,000 career strikeouts, and many feel his achievements may one day land him in the Baseball Hall of Fame.
But CC insists he is not thinking about his place in history, nor is he focused on "that mushy stuff" when it comes to his impending retirement, especially with his sights set on getting back to one more World Series.
"It’s not really about me," he said. "It’s fun to be in these moments now where I’m here when it’s Cleveland and it’s a place I played. It’ll be fun to deal with this weekend. I wish I was more sentimental in that way, but no, it is what it is."
Tom Withers of the Associated Press contributed to this report.
