Big Love "cc!"

Sabathia, born in California, famously allowed that he'd love to pitch there. Everyone knew he would have taken less money to get closer to home. But then came his dominating stint with the Brewers down the stretch last year: Traded to Milwaukee in midseason, Sabathia ignored the pleas of his agent and risked his looming financial bonanza as a free agent by starting three games on three days' rest, throwing seven complete games, going 11--2 with a 1.65 ERA and carrying Milwaukee into the playoffs for the first time in 26 years.

"The most unselfish performance by any player," says Brewers G.M. Doug Melvin. "To pitch like he did for the betterment of the ball club? To put that ahead of free agency? You just don't see that much anymore."

It was, indeed, such a display of baseball cojones that the Yankees felt they had no choice. Sabathia was 28 and had won 117 games, the most for any current pitcher his age: Cashman had to have him. He offered seven years at $161 million—two years and about $60 million more than the Brewers and the Angels. It was the sport's new standard for an offer you can't refuse.

Still, the Yankees faithful are a romantic bunch. They like to think it takes unique toughness to win in New York, and that being a true Yankee has nothing to do with money. This is odd for the richest team in sports, but the paradox abides: Yankees fans live by the wallet yet despise mercenaries. Free-agent pitching busts such as Ed Whitson, Kenny Rogers, Hideki Irabu and Carl Pavano serve as foils in Yankees lore—derided examples of how not to be. With that puffy body and an opt-out clause after three years, Sabathia is more suspect than most new arrivals. Did he come only for the contract? Will Santa be too laid-back for the Bronx?

The man in the stands has it at last. He leans over the railing and yells, "Who wants to be on the WEST Coast?"

A STRANGE THING about marriage: Some couples grow apart, break up and, with all the failures and betrayals and pressures out of the way, rediscover what they liked about each other in the first place. That happened with Margie and Corky. They were, she says, "the best of friends once we split," even as the tie between father and son loosened. Corky and CC never went to sporting events together anymore. Then CC left for the minors, distance compounding distance, with Corky a bit of a mystery now, a subject older family members talked about delicately.

Finally, in January 1999 CC picked him up from a doctor's appointment, and Corky told his son what Margie had known for two years: He had contracted HIV. He needed CC to help take care of him financially. "I never asked him how he got it," CC says. "I felt a lump in my throat, but I didn't cry then. I cried later on. I just prayed I could have him as long as possible."

After CC's first summer in the minors, he and Amber had gotten serious. He took her to meet his dad for the first time, at a medical facility. Excitement at seeing Corky, pride in his new girlfriend—for whatever reason, CC didn't pick up on the clues. His dad had never once come home high; he had never used in front of Margie or CC. But Amber saw it: When they left, Corky wasn't allowed to venture past the front door. "We met him at a drug clinic," Amber says. "I said, 'CC, your dad's at a drug rehab.'"

The following summer the 20-year-old CC finished up his minor league apprenticeship with Double A Akron. Corky drove out with Margie and helped their son get settled. At the end of the season CC went home to Vallejo, and for the first time since he was 13, he and his father took the ferry into San Francisco for a Giants game. They didn't watch much. Instead, they walked the concourses checking out the banty new ballpark, so different from blustery Candlestick Park. "Seven years," Sabathia says. "We were just hanging out. It was pretty cool."

He went 17--5 as a rookie with the Indians in 2001, and the rewards started flowing: a four-year, $9.5 million contract; seats at a heavyweight title fight; rumors linking him to tennis star Serena Williams. Amber, a student at San Diego State, had been accepted for transfer to Cleveland State, but when she heard CC's lukewarm reaction, she knew what it meant: Young man, rich and feeling free. She stayed put and broke up with him, and he didn't argue. He was partying every night in Cleveland, wearing flashy jewelry, which had never been his thing. Margie visited him in May 2002, didn't like what she saw and sat him down just before she left. "Dude, I'm not feeling good," she said. "You're going out too much: You need to slow your roll."