Sabathia feels right at home in New York

NEW YORK - He knows how it looked. CC Sabathia isn't dumb. He knows that by taking as long as he did after the Yankees offered him $140 million before Thanksgiving, the perception was that he never really wanted to come to New York at all. That it was at the bottom of the list. That he's a California guy, a West Coast guy, and the only reason he ended up here is the money.

So yesterday Sabathia tried to explain. And after listening to him and his wife, Amber, talk about what went into their past six weeks or so, you get the feeling that maybe it wasn't ever that simple.

Did the money matter? Of course. It ended up being $161 million and it mattered a lot, just like the extra year (seven seasons instead of six) mattered a lot. But ultimately, the time it took Sabathia to make his choice had more to do with the significance of changing his family's way of life than it did with his feelings regarding the big city.

The Sabathias have been West Coast people forever. CC and Amber first met as high school students in California, and they've always had a home there throughout Sabathia's time with the Indians and Brewers. As they dealt with the birth of their third child earlier this fall, the changes required of a family potentially moving across the country seemed almost overwhelming. New house, new schools, new stores, new time zone. Anyone who has ever moved, even just a few towns away, knows what an ordeal it can be.

"It was a big thing - if we moved, we were coming here for good," Amber said yesterday at Yankee Stadium after the Yankees officially introduced Sabathia and A.J. Burnett, who signed a five-year, $82.5 million deal of his own. Amber later added, "We're going to make this our home now. Year-round."

There are plenty of players who don't do that. Jason Giambi signed a seven-year deal and kept his house in Las Vegas. Mike Mussina would return to his Pennsylvania home every off-day he could. Even Burnett said he was planning to keep his house near Towson, Md., as his permanent residence. But the Sabathias are coming here for good. No back-and-forth. No waiting for the kids to finish school in the summer. No divided family. They're only going back to get some home cooking from CC's aunt around the holidays, Amber said. Does that sound like something someone who never wanted to be here in the first place would do?

"I was kind of freaking out," Sabathia said about the reports he hated New York. "I was just trying to make sure I made the right decision. ... The Yankees were always in my top three. Always."

The other two contenders were Milwaukee - where he pitched stunningly well in going 11-2 after being traded there in July - and the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, a West Coast team with money to spend.

Sabathia's plan had always been to make a decision around the Winter Meetings, but the early offer from the Yankees accelerated the speculation and made it more difficult to wait.

The Brewers came through with a $100 million proposal, but the Angels never made an offer as Sabathia felt comfortable making a decision after getting a hard sell from Cashman both at the meetings in Las Vegas and during a last-minute, Dec. 9 visit to his home in Vallejo, Calif.

"Ten minutes after he left my house, I called him and said, 'I'm going to be a Yankee,' " Sabathia said.

That house call, as it turned out, was crucial. First, Cashman spent time talking with Amber. After answering her questions about the family rooms and facilities at the new Yankee Stadium, he casually mentioned what a great Thanksgiving parade New York puts on every year. Amber said she and the kids had actually just watched the 2008 parade on television, and asked, "Could we go?"

"He said, 'You could have seats right in the front row,' " Amber said, laughing, "and I was like 'I'm sold!' "

More important, Cashman then explained to Sabathia just how long the Yankees had been targeting him. Their first internal discussions about the left-hander had actually taken place last offseason, when they contemplated trading prospects for Johan Santana, who would then require a lucrative contract extension. Instead, the Yankees decided to gamble that they could get Sabathia this offseason, choosing to pay only money (instead of money and prospects) for their new ace. They had researched Sabathia extensively, pored over his statistics and decided that he was the best fit for their team - not just because of his talent as a pitcher, but because they believed he had the personality to thrive in New York.

"This is something that has been a long-term vision for me," Cashman told Sabathia that night, "and I'd like it to come true."

Now it has. There is an opt-out clause in the contract that could allow Sabathia to become a free agent again in three years, but he and Amber are committed to this. "I expect to be here seven years," Sabathia said, and on the recommendation of Johnny Damon's wife, Michelle, he and Amber started looking for houses in suburban New Jersey on Wednesday afternoon.

This is their home now. Sabathia knows how it looked before, knows that it seemed strange to be mulling over such a huge contract offer. But the time it took to get to this point doesn't mean he never wanted to be here at all. Doesn't mean he hated New York. Doesn't mean any of that.

All it means is that sometimes in life, the biggest decisions just take a little longer.

Source http://www.lohud.com/