NEW YORK -- Remember the house in California?
Down the block from Angels Stadium, if you believed the talk. CC Sabathia loved Southern California so much he was building a house there, or so the story went.
So now we find out that Sabathia went house-hunting this week ... in New Jersey. Now we find out that not only did he decide to take the Yankees' millions, but he also decided to become a full-fledged New Yorker -- or a least a Jerseyite.
Now we find out that unlike almost every other member of the team he was supposedly so reluctant to join, CC Sabathia plans to live in the New York area year-round.
And that opt-out clause, the one that supposedly sealed the contract, the one that some people are already so sure Sabathia will use to leave town in three short years?
"The whole opt-out thing was never really our choice," Amber Sabathia revealed Thursday, at her husband's introductory news conference at Yankee Stadium. "We never asked for it. It was (general manager Brian Cashman's) way of saying, 'I know you're going to love it here. If you're not happy after three years, then I want you not to be here. But I know you're going to love it, and this is going to be your home.'
"When he said that, I knew we're going to love it."
Will they love it? There's no way to know, just as there's no way to know whether the Yankees' $161 million investment in Sabathia will pay off.
What we do know is that, for now, Sabathia and his wife are fully committed to loving it.
He's talking like a Yankee, saying several times Thursday that he got chills just saying the word. She's talking about getting front-row seats at next year's Macy's Thanksgiving parade.
We all know that the Yankees got Sabathia because they had the biggest checkbook. The Brewers were the only other serious bidder, and they were about $60 million behind. Nobody turns down that kind of money.
We know that the Yankees were absolutely driven to sign him. Cashman said that he and his aides were talking about Sabathia last winter, and that the possibility of signing him was a big reason that the Yanks balked on trading for Johan Santana.
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| All of a sudden, CC Sabathia wants to call New York home all year round. (AP) |
Sabathia said Thursday his preferred list included only three teams, and that they were the Yankees, the Brewers and the Angels. Amber Sabathia said she never pressured her husband.
But what's clear is that Sabathia was a lot more intrigued than anybody knew by the idea of playing for the Yankees. He was impressed by the phone calls from Derek Jeter and others, and he was so excited to see Reggie Jackson in one of the recruiting meetings that he forgot to ask the questions he had on his list.
"I was staring at him, and I was a little nervous," Sabathia said.
That meeting was in Las Vegas. The next meeting was only a day or two later, when Cashman left the winter meetings to visit the Sabathias in California.
Cashman brought along more money, as the Yankees' original $140 million, six-year offer grew to the eventual $161 million for seven years. He brought along the opt-out clause, too.
"They never said they were afraid of New York," Cashman said. "I never heard that, but you read it. So if that's an issue ... I was in the house and I said, 'I think you're going to love it here, that you're going to like the city and the fans, but let me just throw this out.' "
Cashman left the house, and 10 minutes later, Sabathia called him.
"I'm going to be a Yankee," he said.
He was sold on it then, and if anything, he's more sold on it now.
"Coming here, being in the city and seeing how the people have received me, I definitely feel like I made the right decision," he said.
He already has grabbed hold of New York, in a way that few of his teammates do. Jeter lists a Tampa residence, Alex Rodriguez spends his winters in Miami and Johnny Damon lives in Orlando.
Sabathia will be a New Yorker.
"He can light up a room," Cashman said. "I'm hoping he can light up the city."
It's his city now. It's home.
And everyone can know it.
Bohy007 
