CC schooling coaches at his alma mater

PORT CHARLOTTE, Fla. -- When CC Sabathia goes back to the neighborhood where he grew up, he likes to stop by Vallejo High School and help the baseball coaches.

At length.

"You basically have to ask him to leave," coach Josh Ramos said with a laugh by telephone this week from Vallejo, Calif.

The fortunes of the baseball program at his alma mater matter to Sabathia, so much so that during spring training last year, he decided to bring the coaches, all Vallejo grads and close friends, across the country to him.

The result was the first Vallejo High School Coaches Retreat, done in conjunction with Sabathia's PitCCh In Foundation, the non-profit run by Sabathia and his wife, Amber.

The second retreat will take place this weekend, with the six coaches -- three from the varsity and three from the junior varsity -- arriving Friday morning after leaving Oakland International at 11:05 Thursday night.

Five of the six coaches -- Ramos is the exception -- played baseball and graduated with Sabathia in 1998. Ramos graduated in 2002.

"It was a wonderful experience for all of us," said David Bernstine, Vallejo's co-head coach, who has been one of Sabathia's closest friends since they met as 5-year-olds in kindergarten.

The coaches will head to Orlando Friday afternoonfor various ESPN the Weekend events and attend Friday night's Magic-Bulls game. They'll spend Saturday at Steinbrenner Field, getting a behind-the-scenes tour and the chance to talk with Yankees coaches and watching Sabathia start against the Nationals. The coaches had similar access when they came to Tampa last year.

"It was something we felt we needed to do, those guys coming down," Sabathia said. "Hanging out, seeing spring training. They've been doing a good job at Vallejo trying to turn it around, getting it back to the program it used to be when I was there."

The program had fallen on hard times in the last decade. Last year, the first season under Ramos and the new staff, the Apaches went 21-7, snapping a streak of nine straight losing seasons and qualifying for the playoffs for the first time since 1998, Sabathia's senior year.

No one is attributing the turnaround solely to the retreat to Tampa, but Ramos and Bernstine said there were tangible benefits to the visit, including the way the Yankees honor their past greats.

"Because we have such a strong heritage and so many pro and college baseball players who went to Vallejo," Ramos said, "one of our focuses is to force Vallejo baseball history and alumni on our players and show them it is possible to make it."

The coaches were struck by the organization and structure of Yankees camp. "We saw how it should be done, saw it at the highest level, and brought that back to our team," Ramos said. "It really helped."

Said Bernstine: "We tell coaches around the league and they can't believe it. It's something a lot of people would love to be able to do. It's a big blessing."

One Sabathia is more than happy to bestow. "For me, it's everything, because baseball was so big to us growing up and Vallejo has a lot of tradition, especially with baseball," he said. "To be able to see it get back to just playing good baseball and being respectable is important."

As is spending time with some of his closest friends from childhood, men who remain that way.

If I wasn't playing, I would definitely be doing they're doing."