Margie Sabathia flew into New York the other day, and if she and her son held to family tradition late Friday night, they probably spent 15 or 20 minutes talking about his performance in Game 1, about how nasty the conditions were and how he commanded his fastball. (She's always telling him to use his fastball more.)
She raised
Carsten Charles Sabathia mostly on her own, with help from family, and somewhere along the way she instilled in him a deep sense of accountability. His is not the story of a teenage athlete who was constantly catered to by adults from the time he demonstrated he could throw a baseball really hard. No, Margie sent her moping son home on his bike when he complained about an umpire's call as a kid, or a tough inning, and when he was a sophomore in high school and he was the biggest and best athlete in the room, she yanked him off the basketball team because he'd gotten a C in Spanish. He begged her to relent, the coach asked her to relent, and Margie held firm. He must be responsible for his actions and choices, she insisted.
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Buster Olney
