Carsten Charles Sabathia Jr is a retired professional pitcher with an illustrious 19-year Major league Baseball (MLB) career. Sabathia, who hails from Vallejo, California, grew up as a three-sport athlete. A highly touted prospect at Vallejo High School, Sabathia was selected in the first round of the 1998 MLB Draft by the Cleveland Indians. He would make his major league debut in 2001 and quickly established himself as a top-tier pitcher. His dominance would garner him the 2007 AL Cy Young Award. Sabathia would spend eight seasons with the Indians before being traded to the Milwaukee Brewers in 2008.

During his short stay in Milwaukee, Sabathia would lead the Brewers to their first playoff appearance in 26 years and won the 2008 NL Championship Series MVP award. Sabathia was also named the Warren Spahn Award recipient three years in a row (2007-2009) for being the best left-handed pitcher in the league. His performance would earn him a lucrative contract with one of the most recognizable organizations in the world, the New York Yankees.

In 2017, Sabathia became the all-time American League leader in strikeouts by a left-handed pitcher, and in 2019 became the seventeenth pitcher in MLB history to reach 3,00 strikeouts, joining Randy Johnson and Steve Carlton as the only lefties to achieve this feat. He would retire following the end of the 2019 season with the most career wins, career innings pitched, and career strikeouts among active players. To cement his name in history, Sabathia has 251 career victories, tied with Bob Gibson for the second-most wins by a black pitcher behind Ferguson Jenkins.

Off the field, Sabathia has been a philanthropist and an advocate for social justice issues. He and his wife founded the PitCCh In Foundation in 2008, which aims to enrich the lives of inner-city youth by providing after-school programs and scholarships.