CC Sabathia honored in Vallejo as city renames street after MLB Hall of Famer

By John Ramos

In July, Major League Baseball honored pitching ace CC Sabathia with a place in the Hall of Fame. On Sunday, the city of Vallejo welcomed home the local hero, paying tribute to the kid who reached the highest pinnacle in sports but never forgot where he came from.

CC Sabathia, short for Carsten Charles, took the baseball world by storm. The hard-throwing lefty made batters look silly as he prowled the mound like a grizzly bear.  

“You know, to look up at the end of the day and have my career be recognized as a Hall of Fame career, it’s very special,” he said.  “But, no, I had no idea. I mean, I didn’t. If you ask anybody around here, yeah, they can say that now, but I don’t think they thought that when I was 12 years old.”

Family, friends and admirers gathered at Vallejo High School, where he played all three major sports.  But it was on the diamond where he really stood out, and his childhood friend and teammate Jomar Connors recalled a little scam they pulled in making their own version of pine tar.

“We would put in my mom’s Jheri Curl juice, Kool Aid, lotion, soap, dirt,” he said. “And we would put it on our hands, we’d go hit home runs. So, we started charging the neighborhood kids five dollars. And we’d just throw the ball a little slower so they could hit it out.”

During and after his career, CC and his wife and business manager, Amber, began the “PitCCh In Foundation”, supplying local kids with backpacks and school supplies.  Amber’s auntie, Joan Jones, says CC has earned the love that Vallejo feels for him.

“CC’s hand is open,” she said. “He’s willing to teach, he’s willing to be a mentor and help the next generation. And he helped put Vallejo on the map besides just Mare Island.”

In July, CC spent most of his Hall of Fame induction speech thanking the women in his life, from his grandmother and mother to his wife, all the way down to his own daughters.

“For so many athletes, how many women are truly impactful in their careers?” said Amber.  “A lot of times, we don’t get credit for that.  So, it was great to really get that credit and for him to show all the women how much they meant to him during his life.”

CC and Amber moved to New Jersey when he signed with the Yankees in 2008 and live there still. But their foundation continues to help kids in both New York and Vallejo.  

At the ceremony, Vallejo presented CC with a key to the city and is renaming a street in his honor. 

In the crowd was Jeremy Smith. He moved to Vallejo in the late 1990s and remembers well how CC had sparked the town’s passion for baseball.

“Every part of Vallejo had baseball, and CC was the big star here,” Smith said. “Like, when you got a hometown guy who actually comes back and donates and all that, baseball was booming here.”

But for all his accomplishments on the mound, CC has said how much he loved to hit and wished he could play in a league without the designated hitter. That’s what gave Smith hope that one day he would choose to become a Giant.

“We’ll never know if he could have been as great as Shohei right now, as far as a hitter,” said Smith. “But he would have been up there trying to hit a home run every single time.”

CC’s playing days may be over, but he’s still hitting home runs, this time for a community that will always be proud to call him one of their own.