Yankees to retire CC Sabathia's No. 52, award lefthander a plaque in Monument Park in September
Yankees' CC Sabathia salutes the crowd as he is honored prior to a game against the Blue Jays at Yankee Stadium on Sep. 22, 2019. Credit: Jim McIsaac
TAMPA, Fla. – CC Sabathia took his place among baseball immortals last summer when he was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
He’ll take his place among Yankees legends — many of whom already are in Cooperstown — late this summer.
The Yankees announced before Wednesday night’s spring training game against the Nationals that Sabathia’s No. 52 will be retired before their Sept. 26 game against the Orioles at the Stadium. The ceremony also will include the dedication of a plaque in the lefthander’s honor in Monument Park.
Sabathia, who pitched 11 seasons for the Yankees and 19 overall in the majors, is the 24th Yankees player or manager to have his number retired. The last was Paul O’Neill, whose No. 21 was retired on Aug. 21, 2022.
A member of the Yankees’ last World Series championship team in 2009, Sabathia joins four other members of that team whose numbers have been retired — Derek Jeter (No. 2), Andy Pettitte (46), Jorge Posada (20) and Mariano Rivera (42). Sabathia joined Jeter and Rivera in Cooperstown.
Sabathia, one of just four lefthanded pitchers to reach 3,000 strikeouts (3,052), went 251-161 with a 3.74 ERA during his career with Cleveland (2001-08), Milwaukee (2008) and the Yankees (2009-19). He went 134-88 (.604) with a 3.81 ERA with the Yankees after signing a seven-year, $161 million deal before the 2009 season. When GM Brian Cashman handed Sabathia what was then the largest contract ever for a pitcher, it was a testament to CC’s reputation as a team leader. Cashman wanted Sabathia to, among other things, “fix” what he deemed to be a somewhat broken clubhouse.
Sabathia, who won the 2007 AL Cy Young, went 19-8 with a 3.37 ERA in his first year in pinstripes. He was even better in the postseason, going 3-1 with a 1.98 ERA in five starts. Sabathia earned ALCS MVP honors after going 2-0 with a 1.13 ERA in his two starts against the Angels in what was a six-game series win (Pettitte earned the victory in the Game 6 clincher at the Stadium).
“His combination of dominance and longevity set him apart from so many of his peers and made him one of baseball’s all-time greats,” Cashman said in January 2025 after Sabathia was voted into the Hall of Fame. “Despite CC’s impressive statistical credentials, he set team goals ahead of personal goals. And when you have a player of his stature displaying that type of selflessness, it tends to manifest itself inside every corner of the clubhouse. CC was a difference maker for this organization in a multitude of ways.”
Aaron Boone played with Sabathia in Cleveland from 2005-06 and managed him with the Yankees from 2018-19.
“He brought people together, he connected with a lot of different people from a lot of different walks of life while having the presence of being a superstar,” Boone said after Wednesday night’s 7-0 victory. “Just an awesome competitor and the best of the best in teammates.”
Jeter, the franchise’s last captain before Aaron Judge was named as such in December 2022, also highlighted that aspect of Sabathia’s career in his January 2025 statement.
“During my career with the Yankees, I had the honor of playing with so many talented players. No player exemplified a Hall-of-Fame player and person more than CC Sabathia,” Jeter said. “His career on the field speaks for itself, but it’s his career as a teammate that stands out the most. I look forward to welcoming CC to Cooperstown.”
Judge, on his first day wearing Yankees’ gear, saw Sabathia in action as a teammate.
On June 11, 2013, about a week after being drafted, Judge was invited by the organization to take batting practice before a game against the A’s at Oakland Coliseum.
The then-21-year-old Judge tried his best to steer clear of the big-leaguers coming in and out of the clubhouse as they prepared for that night’s game, at one point wedging his 6-7, 282-pound frame into a chair near his locker inside the Coliseum’s cramped visitor’s clubhouse. Sabathia, slated to start that night’s game, saw Judge, a fellow California native, and approached him.
“I was trying to stay out of his way and he was like, ‘You’re from Northern California, too. Come here and eat with me,’ ” Judge recalled to Newsday in 2024. “It was pretty cool.”
Sabathia’s No. 52 is the 23rd number retired by the Yankees, as No. 8 was retired for catchers Bill Dickey and Yogi Berra on July 22, 1972.
Erik Boland started in Newsday's sports department in 2002. He covered high school and college sports, then shifted to the Jets beat. He has covered the Yankees since 2009.
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