CC, Amber Sabathia forming dynamic duo in baseball world
The Sabathias have made baseball their family business -- and that goes way beyond CC's playing career.
The longtime Yankees and Guardians pitcher and his wife, Amber, are both working to shape the direction the game is headed, even after CC's retirement.
CC and Amber discussed their wide-ranging efforts in the baseball world in a new feature for Boardroom.
"I look at couples like Billye and Hank Aaron, and Jackie and Rachel Robinson -- those are who we try to model our relationship and our business in baseball after," CC said in his interview for the Boardroom Cover Story.
CC now works for MLB as a special assistant to Commissioner Rob Manfred, serving as an ambassador for baseball, and sits on the board of directors for the Players Alliance, which works to create more opportunities for diversity in baseball. Amber is a baseball agent for CAA, who's worked with players like the Reds' Hunter Greene and the Cardinals' Jordan Walker.
"The No. 1 question I get all the time: 'Why are you an agent? You don’t have to be,'" Amber told Boardroom. "Well, Beyoncé doesn’t have to go on tour, but yet, she does. When it's your passion and your purpose and you're good at it -- and I'm really good at what I do -- I knew that this was what our purpose was. For CC, mentoring the next generation and helping them on the field. For me, I love mentoring and helping them off the field. And together, it's a dynamic duo."
Together, the Sabathias run the PitCCh In Foundation, which they founded in 2008 to give back to their community, as well as their own media company devoted to minority athlete empowerment, Grapefruit Media.
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Even their son, Carsten, is part of the Sabathia baseball business. He's a first baseman at Georgia Tech, entering his sophomore season, with CC and Amber helping him through his college baseball career.
"I didn't know what I was going to do in retirement," CC said in his Boardroom interview. "I knew I still wanted to be around the game. But I didn't know how important the game was to me. I didn't know how much I loved the game. I knew that [Amber] wanted to become an agent, and I knew my son was going to be on his journey. But I thought, once I retired: 'Oh, I'm done with baseball. I lived that life.'
"But no. I'm a baseball lifer. It's in my blood. I love being around the stadium, I love working at [MLB] and having a hand in what goes on day-to-day with the league. We're a baseball family. And for the longest time, I think I tried to fight that. But now, just getting into the second half of my life, it kind of is who we are."