Before being voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame as part of the Class of 2025, CC Sabathia was already part of an exclusive club called the "Black Aces" -- 15 African American pitchers who had the distinction of winning 20 or more games in a Major League Baseball season. Sabathia reached that magic number when he won 21 games with the Yankees in 2010.
The other Black Aces include Don Newcombe (1951, '55, '56), Sam Jones ('59), Jim “Mudcat” Grant (1965), Bob Gibson ('65, '66, '68-70), Fergie Jenkins ('67-72, '74), Earl Wilson ('67), Vida Blue ('71, '73, '75), Al Downing ('71), J.R. Richard ('76), Mike Norris (1980), Dwight Gooden ('85), Dave Stewart ('87-90), Dontrelle Willis (2005) and David Price (2012).
2025 Hall of Fame coverage presented by ITO EN
• Ichiro headlines HOF ceremony with poignancy and humor
• CC's HOF induction a celebration of the people who shaped him
• Wagner's perseverance pays off with Hall of Fame immortality
• Parker's spirit shines through in poetic HOF induction speech read by son
• Devoted to teammates and fans, Allen enshrined in Cooperstown
• A look at the next 5 Hall of Fame ballots
• 7 storylines to follow on the 2026 HOF ballot
• Every Hall of Fame class, ranked
The term Black Aces was coined by Grant, who often reminded Sabathia that there weren’t many Black starters in the game of baseball.
“I didn’t understand what it meant to win 20 games as a Black starting pitcher. [Grant] made sure that I understood what that would mean,” Sabathia said. “He made sure I got to be that 20-game winner. I’m very appreciative of having him in my life and my career. I was happy I was able to fulfill this dream that he put in front of me to be a Black ace.
“If you look at the game today, you could probably name five or six Black starters -- Taj Bradley, Hunter Greene, Simeon Woods Richardson. There are not a lot of guys that are starting. [Grant] made it a point in my head that I was a starter.”
In fact, Sabathia will join Gibson and Jenkins as the only members of that exclusive club to be enshrined in Cooperstown. Sabathia received a congratulatory phone call from Jenkins on Tuesday. The two became friends in 2007, when Sabathia won the Warren Spahn Award for being the best left-handed pitcher in the big leagues.
“Me and him sparked up a good relationship. We have become close,” Sabathia said. “To get that call from him is very special.”
Jenkins knows a talented pitcher when he sees one. Sabathia won 251 games, captured the American League Cy Young Award in 2007 and appeared in six All-Star Games over the course of his career while playing for Cleveland, the Brewers and the Yankees. He is also one of three left-handers in history to record 3,000 strikeouts in a career -- Steve Carlton and Randy Johnson are the others.
“That is quite an accomplishment,” Jenkins said. “He has had a great career, playing in a great city like New York, where you are under a microscope all the time. So he was able to handle the pressure. That is a tribute to his ability to go out there and try to win a good percentage of his ballgames. He is pretty dominant, being left-handed. He threw the ball extremely hard.”
Sabathia will be enshrined in Cooperstown alongside Ichiro Suzuki, Billy Wagner, Dick Allen (posthumously) and Dave Parker on July 27 at the Clark Sports Center. Sabathia can’t wait to meet Parker on Wednesday in Cooperstown, N.Y. When he was growing up in Vallejo, Calif., Sabathia often went to Athletics games and called Parker, “My guy.” Parker played for the Athletics in 1988 and ‘89 and helped them win two pennants and one World Series title.
“I’m excited to meet Dave Parker and go into the Hall of Fame with him,” Sabathia said. “He was the big DH on those teams in the late ‘80s."