New York Yankees catcher Austin Romine was buckling his shinguards in the dugout when he heard a booming voice and immediately looked up.

It was CC Sabathia. He was pissed.

“First dude,” Sabathia said.

It was Sept. 27, 2018. Sabathia was set on revenge against the Tampa Bay Rays, after reliever Andrew Kittredge aimed a 93-mph fastball at Romine’s head and narrowly missed in the top of the sixth inning with the New York Yankees ahead, 7-0, at Tropicana Field.

He decided he was going to hit catcher Jesús Sucre to lead off the bottom of the inning to send a message. He was going to do it even it meant getting ejected and finishing the season just short of a contract incentive that would have netted him $500,000.

Aware of the pending payday, Romine briefly tried talking Sabathia out of it. He knew Sabathia started the game needing to throw seven innings for the bonus, and the lefty was two innings shy.

“Nope,” Sabathia said, walking away. “First dude.”

On Tuesday, the Baseball Hall of Fame will announce whether Sabathia has earned first-ballot enshrinement.

When voters from the Baseball Writers’ Association of America contemplated Sabathia’s resume, they weighed all the stats and accolades. They considered that he was the ace when the Yankees won the World Series in 2009, a feat the team hasn’t accomplished since. They noted his 2007 American League Cy Young Award with the Cleveland Guardians, plus his 3,093 strikeouts, 251 wins and six All-Star appearances over his 19-year career. And some likely were still awed that Sabathia saved the Milwaukee Brewers’ 2008 playoff run by making each of his final three starts of the season on three days rest.

What the voters couldn’t quantify, however, was the outsized impact he had on his teammates and the respect he garnered throughout the game.

Never was that more on display on a public stage than in Sabathia’s last start of 2018.

After Sabathia forfeited the half-a-million dollar bonus by plunking Sucre on the butt and getting thrown out, he pointed to Kittredge in the Rays’ dugout and TV cameras could read his lips:

“That’s for you, bitch.”

At the time, it seemed like a shocking move. He had thrown just 54 pitches over five innings, and he was cruising, dotting his signature slider on both sides of the plate and handcuffing righties with the cut fastball that resurrected him late in his career. He wasn’t going to get another chance in the regular season to reach the incentive.

But to Romine and to manager Aaron Boone, it wasn’t a surprise.

All game, the Rays had chirped from their dugout at Sabathia for pitching inside and then hitting Jake Bauers on the hand.

When Romine collapsed to the dirt to avoid Kittredge’s fastball, he had a simple question to the catcher Sucre: “Why?”

For Sabathia, there was no question what had to happen next. He had to protect his teammates, even if home plate umpire Vic Carapazza already had issued warnings to both dugouts.

As Romine dusted himself off, Sabathia left the Yankees’ dugout to shout at the Rays. Boone held him back, walking him to the dugout.

In the process, Boone asked Sabathia not to retaliate. He knew it was a futile request.

“I remember being like, ‘Yeah, let’s not have him throw at anyone here,’ and knowing in my head that I don’t think he’s listening to me in this spot,” Boone said.

The fastball Sabathia hit Sucre with was 92.5 mph — the fastest pitch he threw all night.

“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. It was about his catcher and about his team being thrown at, and he’s been the guy to protect his team throughout his career. You’re throwing at the nine-hole backup catcher, and that’s one thing. You’re not going to throw at the three-hole, four-hole hitters.”

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

“I don’t really make decisions based on money, I guess,” Sabathia said after the 12-1 win. “I just felt like it was the right thing to do.”

Romine played parts of eight seasons as Sabathia’s teammate. He said Sabathia was a de facto captain in the Yankees’ clubhouse, and that the respect Sabathia received from his opponents was unlike anything he’d ever seen.

“He’s still the only guy ever where, generally, leadoff hitters come over and they tip their hat to the opposing manager,” Romine said. “Well, they would do that, and CC would be sitting on that water cooler, and the leadoff hitter would tip their hat to CC. It was funny to watch.”

“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. He’s such a connector. Easy to relate to. Easy to talk to. Made you feel important. Lived for the team over his own personal stuff.

“The great ones that are like that, and Judgey is like that a little bit too. I feel like there’s an underlying confidence that they know that they are going to get theirs and do well. So they don’t really even care about it. It’s about winning and the team, and they live it. CC lived it over and over again.”

At the end of the season, the Yankees gave Sabathia the bonus even though the ejection meant he came up just short.

“Grand scheme of things,” Boone said, “and the career he had, the $500,000 — it didn’t matter to him. Just didn’t matter. His first thing was being a teammate — being a great teammate. The competitive part of things.

“In the end, it just added to the legend of CC.”

(Top photo of Sabathia after his ejection against the Rays in September 2018: Mark LoMoglio/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

The coveted one-of-a-kind autographed MLB debut patch card of Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Paul Skenes is no longer on the market. 

An 11-year-old collector from Southern California decided to pull the card, which was featured in the 2024 Topps Chrome Update set.

The card of Skenes, who was named the 2024 National Leage Rookie of the Year, drew significant interest when the trading card and collectible manufacturer unveiled it in November. 

Shortly after the card became public knowledge, the Pirates became vocal about getting it.

While any Skenes autographed card carries some value, the MLB debut patch edition is a one-of-a-kind collectible, making it highly sought.

The Pirates offered a lengthy package of perks in exchange for the card. A pair of premium Pirates season tickets for a three-year period, a meet and greet with Skenes and autographed jerseys were among offerings from the team. 

Despite the latest turn of events, the Pirates confirmed the team remains ready to honor the offer.

ICHIRO SUZUKI HEADLINES NEWEST BASEBALL HALL OF FAME CLASS; 2 OTHERS ELECTED TO COOPERSTOWN

“An 11-year-old collector just pulled the Paul Skenes 1/1 Debut Patch card! Our offer still stands… you know where to find us,” the Pirates posted on X Tuesday.

LSU gymnast Livvy Dunne, who is dating Skenes, added another incentive to whomever locates the card. 

“Let’s raise the stakes…the person who finds this card can sit with me at a Pirates game in my suite,” Dunne wrote in a post to her Instagram story.

Paul Skenes and Olivia Dunne on the set of ESPN “College GameDay” at the LSU Quad Nov. 9, 2024, in Baton Rouge.  (LSU Athletics/University Images via Getty Images)

Skenes, 22, delivered a season to remember in 2024, finishing 11-3 with a 1.96 ERA and 170 strikeouts.

Before winning NL Rookie of the Year, Skenes was named to the MLB All-Star team. Skenes was the top pick in the 2023 MLB Draft and made his big league debut in May. 

Pittsburgh Pirates starting pitcher Paul Skenes pitches in the first inning against the Milwaukee Brewers at American Family Field.  (Benny Sieu/USA Today Sports)

Rookies have worn MLB debut patches on their jerseys since 2023. Topps acquired the patches and created the unique cards.

In November, Sports Collectors Digest projected the card could command a six-figure price tag.

Follow Fox News Digital’s sports coverage on X, and subscribe to the Fox News Sports Huddle newsletter.

When Willow Bay and her husband, Disney CEO Bob Iger, became controlling owners of Angel City last July, they inherited a women’s soccer team that had lost more games than it had won, had fewer playoff appearances than it had suspensions from the league and would end the year by parting ways with its second general manager and second head coach in three seasons.

So on Wednesday, when Bay cut the ribbon on the team’s massive new performance center at California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks, it was with the hope that would mark the start of Angel City’s turnaround as well.

“This is the vision of this team that we’re helping support and execute,” said Bay, dean of the USC Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism, who joined her husband in investing $50 million in cash for the team to expand its budget and ease its losses. “It was very clear that we needed to invest in football operations here and support the leadership and support the players and making sure they had all the resources they needed to build a winning culture.”

The opening of the performance center comes six days after Angel City announced the hiring of Mark Parsons, one of the most successful coaches in NWSL history, as its sporting director. Parsons said the new training facility will be a big help in recruiting women to come play for his new team.

“If I can get them here and get them to walk around, then it’s going to be very hard for people not wanting to be in this environment,” he said. “When I think of Angel City and why I want to be here, what has started with an ownership group and investors to build a brand that is world-leading, how female athletes should be supported, knowing the ambition now and putting in a performance center that no other women’s sports team has in the world, you’ve kind of touched everything.”

The performance center is part of a 9-acre training base Angel City inherited from the Rams when the NFL team moved to Woodland Hills in August. It is the largest and most modern in the NWSL history, boasting a 5,400-square-foot gym, three locker rooms, a film room, a medical treatment and hydrotherapy area, and a children’s playroom, among other things. There is one full soccer pitch and an adjoining half field.

It’s a big step up from the last three seasons when Angel City worked out of a pair of temporary trailers in a far corner of the CLU campus and used a weight room that wasn’t actually a room, but a huge tent. Angel City would not say exactly how much it spent on refurbishing the facility but said it was a “multimillion-dollar custom rebuild.”

The move into the new facility comes at a time when the league is adjusting to radical new rules that have altered the building of rosters. Last September the NWSL became the first major professional league in the U.S. to ditch the draft, which bound players to the team that selected them. The new collective-bargaining agreement between the league and the players’ association also allows for out-of-contract players to negotiate with every team in the league and gives players the right to block trades to teams they don’t want to play for.

As a result, signing players now means recruiting them first.

Angel City FC general manager Mark Parsons speaks during the ribbon cutting ceremony to unveil the new Angel City training center in Thousand Oaks.

(Al Seib / For The Times)

“My job has just got much, much more easy with this facility,” Parsons said. “A few more clubs over the last few years have been investing. [But] this is unlike nowhere else. I’m excited to be a part of an organization that cares that much.

“But I’m also excited that my skill set just got a bit easier, because everyone’s going to want to be here.”

Christen Press, a two-time World Cup champion and the first player the team signed, said the facility will help make Angel City a destination.

“For the last three years, when we go as a club and talk to top players in the world, we didn’t have this facility to offer,” she said. “It’s a huge part of our day-to-day experience as an athlete and it matters.”

Whether it will be enough to turn around a team that lost a franchise-record 13 games last season, finishing 12th in the 14-team NWSL, remains to be seen. In the last month Matt Wade, the assistant general manager, and technical director Mark Wilson agreed to a one-year contract extension with Press, added French forward Julie Dufour and Australian defender Alanna Kennedy, and signed Mississippi State midfielder Macey Hodge.

Still, the team will begin preseason training Wednesday without a permanent replacement for coach Becki Tweed and with Parsons just a week into his job replacing general manager Angela Mangano Hucles.

A look at the locker room inside Angel City FC’s training facility.

(Al Seib / For The Times)

Parsons said the team has signed Sam Laity, who formerly worked in Seattle and Houston, to manage the club on an interim basis as he searches for a permanent coach.

“Getting the right person is the priority,” Parsons said. “If the right person is available sooner rather than later, fine. If we have to wait for that right person and they’re not available until the summer, then we’re open to that as well.”

For the time being, Bay is promising to be patient and supportive. The results, however, must follow eventually.

“Bob and I were very clear about investing the resources in this team and the people who lead and manage it. And most certainly the women who play for it,” she said.

But, she added, “we know how important it is to do our best to bring a championship to this city.”