CC Sabathia Builds a Lasting Legacy Before Yankees Jersey Retirement

On Sept. 26, the New York Yankees will retire CC Sabathia’s No. 52 jersey during a pregame ceremony at Yankee Stadium. His name will join club icons Mickey Mantle, Babe Ruth, and Lou Gehrig in Monument Park.

Before that ceremony, Sabathia’s PitCCh In Foundation raised more than $450,000 in a single day at its 6th Annual PitCCh In Foundation Golf Classic, held at Alpine Country Club in Bergen County, New Jersey. The proceeds go directly to youth development programs in the Bronx, New York, and Sabathia’s hometown of Vallejo, California.

Former Major League Baseball players Gary Sheffield, Jimmy Rollins, and Adam Jones attended the event, along with active pitcher Taijuan Walker. The field also included former NBA players J.R. Smith, Matt Barnes, and Ron Harper, Super Bowl champion wide receiver Victor Cruz, hip-hop artist Ja Rule, and golf fashion designer Stephen Malbon.

Sabathia has maintained an active presence around baseball through broadcasting, special advisement projects with Major League Baseball, and consulting work with the Yankees front office. Since retiring after the 2019 season, he has also made golf his primary athletic outlet.

Before teeing off, Sabathia said conversations with fellow former players such as Adam Jones had underscored golf’s role as a networking vehicle over the past six years. He has used that network to sustain a charitable funding stream beyond his playing career while bringing together figures from professional sports and entertainment.

Sabathia and his wife, Amber Sabathia, co-founded the PitCCh In Foundation in 2008, during his playing days. The couple, who share four children, regard the organization as a fifth child within their family structure and work to ensure its longevity long past Sabathia’s pitching career.

Among the foundation’s programs are the All-Star Baseball Clinic, the Youth Backpack Program, major baseball field renovations, college scholarship distributions, and structured youth mentorship programs. Its mentorship framework combines educational workshops and physical activities to build emotional resilience and academic preparation among participating students.

The foundation’s approach was shaped in part by athlete-led philanthropy that Sabathia studied during his career. He has cited former Yankees captain Derek Jeter, whose Turn 2 Foundation recently marked 30 years of operation through initiatives including the Jeter’s Leaders Program.

Watching Jeter sustain an impact across three decades influenced Sabathia’s determination to keep PitCCh In thriving continuously in his post-baseball life. That commitment reaches back to Vallejo, where Sabathia grew up attending the local Boys & Girls Club.

Community mentors played an important role in his childhood, including Boys & Girls Club director Philmore Graham, his fifth-grade teacher, and his high school baseball coach at Vallejo High School.

When Sabathia was nine, Oakland Athletics pitcher Dave Stewart made an unannounced visit to the Vallejo Boys & Girls Club. Stewart, a three-time World Series champion and the 1989 World Series MVP, had recorded four consecutive 20-win seasons for Oakland and spoke to the children about perseverance.

The meeting stayed with Sabathia as a young Black athlete and became a template for how he engages with urban youth today.

Sabathia was selected by the Cleveland Indians in the first round of the 1998 MLB Draft. He spent 19 seasons in the major leagues with Cleveland, the Milwaukee Brewers, and the Yankees, winning the American League Cy Young Award in 2007 with Cleveland.

In December 2008, he signed a landmark seven-year, $161 million contract with New York. During his debut season in the Bronx, Sabathia earned ALCS MVP honors and led the Yankees to the 2009 World Series championship.

His career record was 251-161, with a 3.74 ERA and 3,093 strikeouts. Sabathia is one of only 19 pitchers in Major League Baseball history to reach 3,000 strikeouts and one of just three left-handers to do so, alongside Hall of Famers Steve Carlton and Randy Johnson.

The 6th Annual PitCCh In Foundation Golf Classic brought Sabathia’s work across two coasts into the same fundraising effort, supporting youth educational and community initiatives in New York and California as his Yankees jersey retirement approaches.