CC Sabathia Keeps Waiting for an Offer That Won't Come

By JOSH ALPER

Updated 10:09 AM EST, Wed, Dec 3, 2008

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CC Sabathia has spent the last month sitting on his balcony wishing and hoping that his prince would come. The list of callers has been short, however. That nice fella from Milwaukee came by, offering a solid life where CC would be the center of the universe but there's not much money and the surroundings would be quite drab. And then there are the Yankees, who have plenty of money but offer a harsher life with a much greater chance that Sabathia will never find the personal satisfaction he seeks.

It doesn't look like the list is getting any longer. On Tuesday, Angels GM Tony Reagins shot down the idea that the team had moved on from Mark Teixeira and were planning to pounce on Sabathia. The Dodgers and Giants haven't gotten involved, either, which means that Sabathia's hopes of staying on the West Coast may not be shared by anyone else on the West Coast.

Perhaps Reagins is trying to get Teixeira to come down in his demands, but the Angels don't have a burning need for Sabathia. How much longer can Sabathia put off signing the contract that all of baseball is waiting on?

The longer he waits, the greater the chance that Sabathia will have to answer a lot of questions at his introductory press conference about why he didn't want to play for the Yankees. There's a history in the Bronx of landing players who took the Yankees money without ever actually enjoying anything else about the prospect of playing for the team. We've heard nothing from Sabathia, so this may all be idle worry, but if he loathes the idea of playing in New York, all the money in the world isn't going to make it easier.