MILWAUKEE -- The record books reflect that the best in-season trade in Brewers history happened on July 7, 2008. But thanks to an inside man, CC Sabathia saw it coming.

“Dave Riske, one of my lifetime friends,” Sabathia said with a laugh. “Riske called me from Milwaukee and said, ‘Hey, in the back right now they’re making up your jerseys.’”

Few wore the Brewers jersey as well as Sabathia, the 6-foot-6 left-hander who still ranks among baseball’s best Trade Deadline acquisitions. He went 11-2 with a 1.65 ERA in 17 starts for Milwaukee down the stretch in ‘08, including seven complete games, three shutouts and a near no-hitter, lifting the Brewers to their first postseason appearance since the 1982 World Series. He spent more time that season in the American League, yet led the National League in complete games. He even earned a first-place vote for the NL Cy Young Award and finished fifth in the voting.

Now he will be immortalized with baseball’s ultimate honor. Sabathia earned election to the National Baseball Hall of Fame on Tuesday after garnering 86.8% of the votes in his first year on the ballot.

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He will become the ninth player and 11th man with Brewers ties to earn a place in Cooperstown, and the second in this cycle with Dave Parker. “Cobra” was elected in December after voting by the Classic Baseball Era Committee.

For Sabathia, it’s the culmination of a career that spanned 19 seasons for Cleveland, the Brewers and the Yankees. For Milwaukee fans, however, the memories are all condensed into one magical summer.

“That dude was unbelievable,” former Brewers ace Ben Sheets said. “Unbelievable run. Remarkable. He’s one of the best ever.”

“We jumped on his back,” said shortstop J.J. Hardy, “and he carried us.”

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It was Brewers GM Doug Melvin who brought Sabathia to Milwaukee with an aggressive approach. Zack Minasian, a Brewers baseball operations assistant at the time who is now GM of the Giants, remembers that after Melvin’s very first phone call with Cleveland GM Mark Shapiro in early June, Melvin reported hearing a crack in Shapiro’s voice when they discussed top Brewers prospect Matt LaPorta.

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“We’ve got a chance to get this guy,” Melvin said after hanging up the phone.

Then the Dodgers swept in.

“They thought they had a deal, and [L.A. owner Frank] McCourt just couldn't buy into it. But our owner, Mark Attanasio, was supportive,” Melvin said. “It wasn't the kind of deal people felt the Brewers would make. Why would you give up the so-called controllable guys for half a season [of a star player]?

“Well, the reason you do it is to get over the hump. It had been 26 years since we had made the playoffs.”

Melvin wanted Sabathia as soon as possible, so he paid a premium to get to a deal before the All-Star break. The sides agreed to a prospect package including LaPorta, left-hander Zach Jackson and right-hander Rob Bryson (who was chosen from a list that had included catcher Jonathan Lucroy). But they were stuck on the final piece. Cleveland liked both outfielder Michael Brantley and third baseman Taylor Green, who was rated more highly at the time.

“I said, ‘If we get to the playoffs, you get to pick. If we don't, I get to pick,’” Melvin said. “Because if we got in, we'd be excited and happy, and it wouldn't matter who we gave up. Mark was agreeable to that.”

Said Shapiro: “I don't know of another trade like that.”

It was the Brewers’ biggest in-season swap since getting future Hall of Famer Don Sutton from the Astros in August 1982, and it gave them a legitimate 1-2 punch with Sabathia and Sheets, who was off to the best start of his career. Like Sabathia, Sheets was to be a free agent at year’s end.

So eager was Sabathia to get to Milwaukee that he landed the same day as the press release announcing the trade: July 7. The Brewers introduced him to the crowd in the third inning that night and sent Sabathia to the mound a day later for what he called an “erratic” performance against the Rockies -- three runs (two earned) on five hits in six innings, with five walks and five strikeouts. Most importantly, the Brewers won in front of a raucous sellout crowd that was uncommon for a Tuesday night. Sabathia was too amped up and rushed through his pregame warmup. Ryan Braun said it felt like Opening Day.

Five days later, in front of another sellout crowd, Sabathia pitched a complete game and hit a homer in a 3-2 win against the Reds in the first-half finale. Five days after that, he started the first game following the break and struck out 10 in another complete game in San Francisco. Five days after that, he threw a three-hit shutout at St. Louis.

The summer of CC was underway.

“It felt like we only needed one run whenever he was pitching,” said Braun. “Sometimes, he delivered it himself.”

“I think about how much fun that was,” Sabathia said. “It was a new city, but I showed up in the clubhouse and felt like I had been there for 10 years.”

With veteran catcher Jason Kendall calling pitches, including a new two-seam fastball from Brewers pitching coach Mike Maddux (which became a fixture for Sabathia for the rest of his career), he completed six of his first 11 Brewers starts and pitched into the ninth inning of another. The Brewers led the Majors that August with a 20-7 record and a 2.53 ERA.

“Sabathia brought Milwaukee into the ‘A block’ -- a TV term for the first highlight,” Brewers broadcaster Brian Anderson said. “We were in the A block for the whole summer after that. Every time I see CC, I thank him for my career.”

Why’s that? An executive at Turner Sports noticed Anderson’s calls on the highlight shows and hired him for postseason games that year. Now Anderson has worked 17 MLB postseasons, 13 NCAA Tournaments, 11 NBA playoffs and counting.

That August culminated with a performance that still rankles Anderson and everyone else associated with the team. They insist it was the second no-hitter in Brewers history, an 11-strikeout masterpiece at Pittsburgh’s PNC Park in which the only hit was on Andy LaRoche’s comebacker to Sabathia leading off the fifth inning. Sabathia picked up the baseball on the third-base side of the mound with his bare hand and dropped it. Official scorer Bob Webb ruled it an infield hit, and sure enough, it was the only Pirates hit in a 7-0 Brewers win.

Media relations director Mike Vassallo petitioned MLB to change the scoring decision, but it would have been the first time in history that a no-hitter was awarded retroactively, and the motion was denied. Vassallo’s letter to the league hangs in his home today, signed by Sabathia with the inscription, “Thanks for trying.”

The only one who didn’t seem upset was Sabathia, who never did throw a no-hitter in his career.

“That whole run with the Brewers was so fun, anyway. So it doesn’t matter,” he said.

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The Brewers slumped in September, costing manager Ned Yost his job with 12 games to go in favor of interim manager Dale Sveum. But it wasn’t because of Sabathia. He logged a 2.11 ERA and pitched at least seven innings in five of six September starts, the final three on three days’ rest.

Never mind that Sabathia was weeks away from hitting free agency. On sports talk radio, they debated whether the Brewers were abusing their summer rental.

“I remember going downstairs after one of the games he pitched on three days' rest and I ran into his agent, Brian Peters,” Melvin said. “He says, ‘Doug, what are you guys doing?’”

Peters shared his concerns with Sabathia. So Sabathia stopped taking his agent’s phone calls.

The decision, Sabathia said years later, was his.

“I went into Dale’s office and told him I was pitching,” he said. “The Brewers shouldn’t take any blame for that. It was all on me.”

Sabathia saved his finest performance of September for last, delivering a complete game against the Cubs to clinch the NL Wild Card in the regular-season finale. It was almost another shutout, but Ronny Cedeno beat out a double-play ball in the second inning as Chicago scored its only run. The Brewers won on Braun’s tiebreaking two-run home run in the eighth, and after inducing a game-ending double play, Sabathia looked skyward, flexed and let out a roar. It became an iconic image from his career.

“It was his game, it was his two months, it was his year,” Sveum said. “That’s just a special human being.”

Once they got to the postseason, Sabathia was spent. He lost Game 2 of the National League Division Series in Philadelphia, his fourth straight start on short rest. The Brewers made some public noise about trying to re-sign him, including a meeting between Melvin, Sabathia and Sabathia’s agents during the Winter Meetings in Las Vegas. But they all knew the Brewers were not going to be able to pay what Sabathia was worth on the open market. He signed with the Yankees for seven years and $161 million, winning the World Series the following year.

On his plaque, Sabathia will be a Yankee. But however brief his tenure in Milwaukee, he’ll always be a Brewer there.

“I’ll always remember my time in Milwaukee,” Sabathia said. “Hopefully the fans feel the same way. That was a special part of my career.”