CC Sabathia Gets Emotional Ovation After Heartbreaking End to His Career

In Friday’s Hot Clicks: CC Sabathia leaves the mound for the final time, Patrick Mahomes goes down and more.

CC deserved better

The Yankees’ season isn’t officially over but CC Sabathia’s career is. 

The Astros won Game 4 of the ALCS in the Bronx to take a commanding 3–1 lead in the series. The story of the night, though, may have been the end of Sabathia’s Hall of Fame career. 

CC was added to the ALCS roster after a balky pitching shoulder held him out of the first round of the playoffs. The 39-year-old had already announced before the season that he would be retiring at the end of the year. He was hoping the Yankees would advance to the playoffs and he would be healthy enough to pitch in the postseason one last time. 

Manager Aaron Boone, Sabathia’s former teammate in Cleveland, called on him in relief in the eighth inning Thursday night. But the shoulder flared up and he was forced to come out of the game in the middle of an at-bat. 

The few fans who remained in the stands as the clock approached midnight and the game seemed out of reach knew the stakes and tried to will CC on but to no avail. 

Former Yankees manager Joe Girardi was on the verge of tears when speaking about Sabathia on MLB Network after the game. 

It seems cruelly ironic that Sabathia, whose career was marked by longevity and durability, one of the last true workhorse pitchers in the game, was forced to end his career like that. But then you realize what he put himself through over the past few seasons just to get on the mound—he described the pain in his surgically repaired knee as an 8-out-of-10 on a daily basis—and it becomes clear that he pitched until his body simply couldn’t any longer, and there’s something admirable about that. 

This injury might have changed the whole season

Patrick Mahomes—the most entertaining player in the NFL—left Thursday Night Football with a knee injury and didn’t look good. 

Mahomes dislocated his kneecap (you see the medical team popping it back into place) and will have an MRI to determine the extent of the damage. He’s reportedly expected to miss at least three weeks. It’ll be a real bummer if he misses significant time and the NFL’s most electric offense is forced to turn to Matt Moore. 

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Email dan.gartland@simail.com with any feedback or follow me on Twitter for approximately one half-decent baseball joke per week. Bookmark this page to see previous editions of Hot Clicks and find the newest edition every day. By popular request I’ve made a Spotify playlist of the music featured here. Visit our Extra Mustard page throughout each day for more offbeat sports stories.