After his election into the baseball Hall of Fame on Tuesday, CC Sabathia said he wants a Yankees logo on the cap on his plaque in Cooperstown.

“I love the other organizations,” Sabathia said. “But this is home. I found a home in the Bronx and I don't think I'll ever leave this city, so I think it’s only fitting.”

The final decision of which team logo a new Hall of Famer gets on his plaque cap is not up to the player, however.

"The Hall of Fame provides guidance to each new inductee as to which logo, if any, may be represented on the cap of his plaque," said Jon Shestakofsky, Baseball Hall of Fame vice president of communications and content. "While the Hall of Fame has the final say as to which logo is depicted, we work with the electee to reach an appropriate conclusion that accurately reflects the new electee's career in the game.”

The whole “Hall of Fame decides” thing started because of a controversy involving Hall of Famer Wade Boggs about the logo on his cap.

It is a common misconception that Boggs went into Cooperstown in 2005 as the first Tampa Bay Devil Rays Hall of Famer and that he was paid or promised a job with the club to do so even though the bulk of his career was spent in Boston.

"This was never, ever a subject," Boggs said in 2017. "I think it came from when Jose Canseco said, 'If I get in the Hall of Fame, I'm going in as a Devil Ray,' And someone probably misconstrued that I said that and that Mr. [Vincent] Naimoli [then-owner of the Rays] offered me a million dollars to be the first Devil Ray to go into the Hall of Fame, and that conversation never took place."

Still, the Hall made it clear after that the decision about the cap logo is not for sale or barter.

Sabathia spent the first eight years of his career with Cleveland, then half a season with Milwaukee before signing a free-agent contract with the Yankees before the 2009 season. Sabathia led the Yankees to a World Series title in 2009 and won 134 of his 251 games in pinstripes before retiring in 2019.

If the Hall agrees and allows Sabathia to use a Yankees logo, he will become the 22nd player or manager to sport a Yankees cap on his logo, the most of any team in the Hall.

The first 21 includes 17 players and four managers. They are players Earle Combs, Bill Dickey, Joe DiMaggio, Whitey Ford, Lou Gehrig, Lefty Gomez, Joe Gordon, Goose Gossage, Waite Hoyt, Reggie Jackson, Derek Jeter, Tony Lazzeri, Mickey Mantle, Mariano Rivera, Phil Rizzuto, Red Ruffing and Babe Ruth and managers Miller Huggins, Joe McCarthy, Casey Stengel and Joe Torre.

Notable former Yankees who do not have a Yankees logo on their Hall of Fame plaques include Yogi Berra, Rickey Henderson and Mike Mussina — all for different reasons.

Berra spent the first 18 years of his illustrious career with the Yankees before he got nine at-bats with the Mets in 1965. He wasn’t elected to the Hall until 1972, his second year on the ballot, and his first as manager of the Mets.

Berra’s Hall of Fame plaque does not have any team’s logo, though, because his face was forged in profile. The front of Berra’s cap on the plaque is not visible — it’s inscrutable, just as were many of Berra’s legendary “Yogi-isms.”

Henderson, who grew up in Oakland, California, and played for the A’s during four different stints, spent time with nine different organizations (including the Yankees and Mets) during his 25-year career.

“I’m thinking about wearing five different caps,” Henderson, who died last month at the age of 65, said in 2017. “No, in my heart it’s the A’s. I had a lot of organizations that were really good to me. These are the guys who got me my start.”

And Mussina has no team logo on his cap because he didn’t want to choose between his original team, the Orioles, with whom he spent his first 10 seasons, and the Yankees, with whom he spent his last eight.

“Honestly, it wasn’t a very tough decision at all. I kind of made it in about three or four minutes,” Mussina said in 2019. “I don’t feel like I can honestly pick one organization over the other. They both were tremendously involved in my career.”

The Mets have two Hall of Famers sporting their logo: Tom Seaver and Mike Piazza.

But there’s good news on the (very) far horizon: Five years after his 15-year contract is up, Juan Soto will be eligible for the Hall.

 

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