CC Sabathia spent 11 seasons with the New York Yankees and was a fan favorite in that time. His dominant pitching and role in delivering a championship to the Bronx in his first season are two major reasons why. Then there's the now-famous story of Sabathia forfeiting a $500,000 bonus to back up a teammate.

It happened on September 27, 2018 during the last start of his penultimate regular season. Sabathia entered the game against the Tampa Bay Rays needing to pitch seven innings to unlock a $500,000 bonus in his contract. He took himself out of the running for that payday when Rays reliever Andrew Kittredge just missed hitting Yankees backup catcher Austin Romine in the head with a pitch in the top of the sixth inning.

On the day that Sabathia could be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame, The Athletic's Brendan Kuty recalled the story.

“First dude,” Sabathia reportedly said to Romine before the bottom of the sixth.

When Romine tried to talk Sabathia out of it, knowing the pitcher would be ejected for retaliating and fall short of his incentive, Sabathia repeated, “Nope. First dude.”

True to his word, Sabathia plunked the Rays' leadoff hitter, catcher Jesus Sucre, and was promptly ejected.

TV cameras caught Sabathia mouthing to Kittredge, “that’s for you, b—.”

CC Sabathia's Yankees teammates speak of his clubhouse presence

 Former New York Yankees pitcher CC Sabathia during the Old Timers’ Day Ceremony at Yankee Stadium.
Wendell Cruz-Imagn Images

Sabathia won a Cy Young, a World Series, was named to six All-Star teams and nearly single-handedly pitched the Milwaukee Brewers into the 2008 postseason. If he's inducted into the Hall of Fame it will be for his baseball resume, not his qualities as a teammate.

But Sabathia is one of the more beloved recently retired MLB players for a reason.

“It speaks volumes to the old school baseball player he was, and the kind of baseball player he came up with,” Romine said. “No one is throwing at your guys, especially at the head. I think that really set something off in him. I’m never going to say it was about me. It was about his team.”

Yankees slugger Aaron Judge had a similar reaction after that game in 2018.

“That’s the type of guy you want to go to battle with,” Judge said.

Perhaps his former manager, Aaron Boone, put it best.

“He’s getting ready to go to the Hall of Fame because of his excellence on the mound and the numbers he put up and the things he did,” Boone said. “But I think you’d be hard pressed to find somebody that he ever played with that probably didn’t have him near the top of their all-time teammate list.”