By Dave Davies, National Public Radio, July 14, 2021
The six-time All Star pitched for the Yankees and the Indians during his 19-year career. He also struggled with alcoholism. Sabathia reflects on baseball and sobriety in the memoir, Till the End.
DAVE DAVIES, HOST:
This is FRESH AIR. I'm Dave Davies, in today for Terry Gross.
You might remember our guest today, CC Sabathia, as the dominating left-handed pitcher for the Cleveland Indians and the New York Yankees. He was a towering figure on the mound, often with his cap tilted over his right eye. Sabathia was a six-time All-Star, a winner of the Cy Young Award and a starter for the Yankees team that won the 2009 World Series. He's one of only a handful of players to win 250 games and notch 3,000 strikeouts, numbers that will probably land him in the Hall of Fame someday.
But Sabathia fought some demons in his 19 seasons in the big leagues. He was an alcoholic for 15 of those years, somehow managing to be sober when he took the mound and drinking himself into oblivion - and often fisticuffs - much of the rest of the time. Sabathia tells the story of his youth, his baseball career and his turn to sobriety in a new memoir written with Chris Smith. It's called "Till The End." CC Sabathia retired from baseball after the 2019 season. He co-hosts the "R2C2" podcast with sportscaster Ryan Ruocco. And you can see a documentary about his life called "Under The Grapefruit Tree" on HBO.
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*Watch a separate interview with Gayle King below.
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