Damn Yankees and my never ending man-crush on CC Sabathia

As I watched the Brewers flail at another CC Sabathia changeup I had flash backs to the 2008 season and thought to myself, "man wouldn't it be great to still have CC?" After his magnificent run with the team for that half a season in 2008 I wanted him in a Brewers uniform for life. But everybody knew he was a goner. The Yankees had missed the playoffs the previous year and they didn't want it to happen again so they did what they do best, they spent money and offered CC a contract the Brewers couldn't even dream of giving a single player.

So as I was watching the game, the crew of FSN kept cutting to highlights of the 2008 season. CC's almost no-hitter and the final game of the season. Seeing those replays still gives me chills. It was the best moment of my life when it comes to being a Brewer fan and I will never forget that summer. That season in itself deserves its own blog post but it was hard not to think about it while watching CC pitch again.

Now I'm not one to hate on the Yankees just because they spend a lot of money and they constantly win because of it. But for some reason I was getting infuriated watching the games. It didn't help that the Brewers were not playing well all series and a sweep was the worst thing that could have happened, because at the same time the Cardinals were sweeping the Orioles and the Brewers three game lead in the division was gone in the blink of an eye. The thing that was killing me the most was that the Yankees were doing all the little things right. They get a guy on base, he steals, the next hitter gets him to third, and then the next guy drives him in, and then of course hits pile up and Nick Swisher hits a three-run homerun, Nick Swisher hit a fucking homerun, of course he did, only his 10th on the year.

I started to look for reasons to hate the Yankees, stupid A-rod, even though he did close to nothing this series, stupid Teixeira, who hit his 300th career homerun, that dumb stadium that little leaguers could seemingly hit homeruns out of. Anything I could think of became reasons for me to hate the Yankees in that moment. And then CC came back out on the mound.

Suddenly the hate I was feeling towards the Yankees was gone. Weeks pops up, Gomez grounds out and then Braun gets a hit, extending his hitting streak to 20 games. This hit knocks CC out of the game with a high pitch count. No runs and 13 strikeouts over seven and two-thirds innings. As CC walked back to the dugout amongst a standing ovation from the Yankee fans I realized something. I could never hate CC, never in my life. Even though he is wearing pinstripes and probably will be for the rest of his career, nothing he does will make me hate him, not after what he did for the Brewers, the city of Milwaukee and me. He may be a Yankee but I will always remember him like this.