COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. — With 251 career victories and 3,093 strikeouts, CC Sabathia earned first-ballot election to the Hall of Fame. Only car trouble, it turned out, could delay his path to Cooperstown.
Sabathia posted a photo with his wife and four children by the side of State Route 17, in or near Goshen, N.Y., on Thursday night on X. It generated more than 1.4 million views by Saturday afternoon.
Car broke down on the way to Cooperstown 🤣🤣🤣 Anyone headed that way? pic.twitter.com/3v6De0Furg
— CC Sabathia (@CC_Sabathia) July 25, 2025
The family arrived safely, and Sabathia has enjoyed the splendor of induction weekend: a garden party with his new teammates Friday and a round of golf with his sons by Otsego Lake on Saturday. He also took time to explain the complicated journey from his home in Alpine, N.J.
“It was an adventure,” Sabathia said. “For my family, whenever it’s six of us traveling somewhere together, something’s always going to go wrong. We have a group chat that’s called ‘Strong as a Unit,’ because when we’re all together, no matter what happens, we know we can get through it.
“But it’s one of those weird things where my wife has a brand new Escalade, we drive it up here, we stop to get food, everything’s going great. And then we try to get on the on-ramp on 17, and her car stopped. And most of the time when we’re driving, I’m gone. I never drive behind her. But for some reason the other day, I was just I was taking my time and (I was) right behind her.
“It was pretty funny because I’m taking pictures, my kids are going on TikTok, and Amber’s in the back like the super-serious person that she is, getting everything done. People were honking at us and recognizing us on the side of the road. So for us it was fun, for her it was a nightmare.”
Luckily, Sabathia said, they were only 45 minutes or so from home. He piled the family and their things in his car, drove home to get a truck and started their trip all over again.
Of course, if Sabathia had signed on the West Coast after the 2008 season, as he expected, he would not have had such a manageable commute to Cooperstown. After starting his career with Cleveland and Milwaukee, he will wear a New York Yankees cap on his plaque.
“I didn’t want to go to New York as a free agent,” he said. “I’m from Northern California, so I thought I wanted to be close to home. But the first day of free agency, you know, the Yankees offered me a contract, and I tried to ignore it. I tried pretending like it didn’t happen.”
Amber, he said, told Sabathia to remember how much he wanted to win, and how the Yankees would give him the best chance.
“When she put it to me that way,” he said, “I was like, ‘I was born to be here.’”
(Photo of CC Sabathia: AP Photo/Seth Wenig)