Yankees fans will love CC Sabathia's predictably NSFW reaction to Hall of Fame election

As recently as two months ago, most baseball experts believed that Yankees ace CC Sabathia would eventually transcend the Hall of Very Good and gain admission to Cooperstown ... but that the process might take a little while.

Sure, Sabathia was phenomenal in his day, breathing fire down the stretch in Milwaukee in 2008 before helping to carry the Yankees to a World Series with a three-man rotation in 2009. His 3,000 strikeouts and 250 wins represented nice milestones to hang his hat on, and the multiple phases of his career allowed for a strong storytelling arc. His status as a teammate was inarguably gilded. He'd get there. But, with a career ERA relative to the league that compared to Andy Pettitte, surely a good portion of voters would be inclined to make him work for it.

Instead, the opposite happened; Sabathia was elected in a landslide, and dragged Pettitte's argument upward in the lefty's Year Seven rather than being attached to his stalling case like an anchor.

There was simply nobody like Sabathia. An affable persona in moments of joy. A reflective one when things were trending downward. Above all, a teammate who scoffed at personal glory overshadowing group success -- but, of course, now that the personal glory is here after a career's worth of sacrifice, it feels so good.

Perhaps the all-time Sabathia story involves the lefty coming to Austin Romine's defense in his final regular season start of 2018. Just two innings shy of a $500,000 bonus, Sabathia chose to back up Romine after his catcher had been buzzed, telling Dellin Betances in the dugout that he was about to make some Rays scamper before doing so and getting ejected.

Needless to say, the Yankees paid it forward for Sabathia, awarding him his bonus anyway on honor. On Tuesday, Sabathia echoed his famous catchphrase; once directed at the Rays, it was now aimed at those who stood in his corner on election day.

Or maybe he was still yelling about the Rays, actually?

Yankees fan favorite CC Sabathia recalled his NSFW moment of defending his teammate after Hall of Fame election

This will come as no surprise, but Sabathia never shied away from the larger parts of his personality, or the self-motivation he needed to compete at the highest level.

Neither did his family. In fact, if you pick the right day to visit Sabathia — probably when MLB Network's cameras aren't in the home — you might just see them all decked out in matching NSFW shirts.

Sabathia and his clan remain larger than life, and though the powerful lefty promised brevity in his Hall of Fame speech in an interview with former teammate Chris Young that ran on Tuesday, you can be bet that his time at the dais will be emphatic, no matter how much time he takes off the clock.

It's for all of us. We are all b****es.