CC Sabathia
Born: July 21, 1980
Birthplace: Vallejo, CA
Zodiac Sign: Cancer
Carsten Charles Sabathia Jr. aka CC Sabathia, is an American professional baseball pitcher for the New York Yankees of Major League Baseball (MLB). He previously played for the Cleveland Indians and Milwaukee Brewers. Sabathia bats and throws left-handed.
Sabathia made his major league debut with the Indians in 2001 and placed second in the 2001 AL Rookie of the Year voting behind 2001 AL MVP Ichiro Suzuki. Sabathia played the first seven-and-a-half seasons of his career with the Indians, with whom he won the 2007 Cy Young Award. He led the Indians to the 2007 AL Central Division title and their first postseason berth since his rookie year. Following a trade, Sabathia played the second half of the 2008 MLB season with the Milwaukee Brewers, helping them make the playoffs for the first time in 26 years.
In the 2008 offseason, Sabathia signed with the New York Yankees for seven years and $161 million; at the time, this was the largest contract ever signed by a pitcher. With the Yankees, Sabathia led all of Major League Baseball in wins in both 2009 and 2010 and won a World Series ring in 2009. He was also voted the 2009 American League Championship Series Most Valuable Player. After mid-career struggles attributed to lost fastball velocity, chronic knee injuries, and alcoholism, Sabathia again found success in the late 2010s after reinventing himself as a control pitcher. In February 2019, he announced that 2019 would be his final season as a professional baseball player.
During his career, Sabathia has been named an All-Star six times and has won the Warren Spahn Award three times. In August 2017, Sabathia became the all-time American League leader in strikeouts by a left-handed pitcher. As of June 2019, he leads all active Major League players in career wins, career innings pitched and career strikeouts. On April 30, 2019, he became the seventeenth pitcher in MLB history to reach 3,000 strikeouts and the third left-hander to do so (joining Randy Johnson and Steve Carlton).
Sabathia and his wife, Amber, have four children: a son Carsten Charles III (born 2003), a daughter Jaeden Arie (born 2005), a daughter, Cyia (born 2008), and a son Carter (born 2010). The family lived in Fairfield, California outside his hometown of Vallejo, California near San Francisco until he signed with the Yankees. Then the family moved to Alpine, New Jersey. Nevertheless, Sabathia remains connected to his hometown. In January 2012, Vallejo High School honored Sabathia by declaring "CC Sabathia Day" and renaming the school's baseball field in his honor; Sabathia's PitCCh In Foundation had helped to renovate the field. The PitCCh In Foundation is a charity that supports inner city children. In 2014, the foundation supported a team of runners in the 2014 New York City Marathon.