CC Sabathia says he gave up a $500,000 bonus to defend a teammate, but the Yankees paid him anyway “They put a bonus in my contract, I think I needed like 140 innings to get 500 grand extra in my bonus. We go into Tampa, and I need six innings to get this bonus. I'm in the fourth inning, cruising. I'm getting this” “Then they threw a ball up and in at my catcher, Austin Romine. I know baseball, so I knew that shit came from the bench. Because I threw a two-seamer in and hit Jake Bauers in the hand. So they made a big stink. They throw at Austin Romine. I come out of the dugout and I'm ready to go” “Then everybody calms me back down. Gardy comes to me. He's like, ‘Bro, don't do it.’ And I was like, ‘Just be ready to fucking fight.’ That's all I told him. So their catcher comes up the next inning and I hit him with the first pitch. I wasn't mad at him. I was mad at the situation and who called it” “I said what I said at their bench and I walked off. When I was walking off, in the moment, I was like, ‘Fuck, I don't know if I made the right decision.’ Then everybody came in after the game and they was all fired up. That was something where, in the moment, it was the right thing to do” “It was just a snap decision. I was just trying to show this is how you take care of your teammates. My team was young. Luis Severino was in there. Judge was young. All those dudes were young. This is how you set the standard. Don't matter about the fucking money. You go and you do what you got to do for your teammates and everything else will work out. Hal called me the next day and paid me my bonus”