CC has received the call.
Yankees legend CC Sabathia was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame on Tuesday night, in what was his first year on the ballot.
Sabathia, who received 86.8 percent of the vote, joins Ichiro Suzuki and Billy Wagner as part of the 2025 class.
"It means everything to me, just to go into the Hall of Fame in general is a big honor," Sabathia told MLB Network following the announcement. "But to go in first-ballot, I know what that means as a baseball player. It's super exciting... Something that was important to me was to be available and take the ball as many times as possible during the season.
"I wanted my guys in the clubhouse to feel like, every time I went out there, every fifth day, we had a chance to win. If I was available, I was going to take the ball... Every time there was an opportunity for me to take the ball in a big spot -- Game 1 of a playoff series or Game 1 of a season -- I was up to do it."
The left-handed starter was the definition of a workhorse during his prestigious career, cracking the All-Star team six times and topping the 180-inning mark in 13 of his 18 big league seasons.
Sabathia made his debut back in 2001 with Cleveland, and he took the league by storm, finishing as the runner-up in American League Rookie of the Year voting after striking out 171 batters across 180 innings.
He spent seven and a half years pitching in Cleveland, racking up his lone Cy Young award and three All-Star appearances, before being shipped off to the Milwaukee Brewers ahead of the 2008 trade deadline.
The southpaw was spectacular with the Brew Crew, as he put together seven complete games (three shutouts) in his 17 outings down the stretch to help them reach the postseason for the first time since 1982.
Sabathia reached free agency for the first time in his career at season’s end, and he ended up landing in the Bronx on a seven-year, $161 million deal, which was the largest contract for an MLB pitcher at the time.
He recorded a league-leading 19 wins and pitched to a 3.37 ERA during his first year with the Yankees. He then went on to take home ALCS MVP honors after throwing eight innings of one-run ball in his two outings and secured his lone World Series title.
Sabathia remained a consistent presence atop New York’s rotation, as he accumulated a 3.79 ERA, 1.28 WHIP, 1,396 strikeouts, and 110 wins across 150 outings over his next 10 seasons with the club.
He finished his career with 251 wins and a 3.74 ERA across 3,577.1 innings of work. Sabathia is also just one of 19 pitchers in the 3,000-strikeout club (3,093).
Sabathia recently told Gary Phillips of the New York Daily News that he "absolutely" plans on going into Cooperstown donning a Yankees cap.
ICHIRO GETS THE CALL
Sabathia isn’t the only Yankee first-ballot member of this class -- he is accompanied by Ichiro Suzuki.
Ichiro (99.7 percent) fell a single vote shy of joining legendary Yankees closer Mariano Rivera as the only unanimous Hall-of-Famers in baseball history.
The slugging outfielder came over to the majors from Japan when he was already 27 years old, and he quickly established himself as one of the best pure hitters in baseball while starring with the Seattle Mariners.
He posted a .300-plus average, 200-plus hits, and logged an All-Star appearance in each of his first 10 major league seasons.
Ichiro requested a trade out of Seattle midway through the 2012 season, and his first choice was to be shipped to the Bronx, where he spent the next three years.
He was a lifetime .311 hitter, who accumulated 4,367 hits in his professional career between NPB and MLB and also holds the MLB single-season hit record (262, set in 2004).