CC Sabathia feels that his former New York Yankees teammate, Andy Pettitte, should be in the Baseball Hall of Fame.

“For me, Andy’s a Hall of Famer,” Sabathia said this week of Andy Pettitte. “Getting a chance to pitch alongside him, getting a chance to still talk to him pretty much all the time — I believe he’s a Hall of Famer.”

CC Sabathia was an ace. You know who screamed this fact loudest? Not me. The sport did. The sport told us what the final numbers didn’t.

This story was excerpted from Bryan Hoch’s Yankees Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

Most New York Yankees fans fear Andy Pettitte will never make it into the Baseball Hall of Fame. The left-handed legend, however, has the biggest promoter in Cooperstown leading the campaign to get him in. Newly-elected Hall of Famer CC Sabathia made it clear to MLB.com’s Bryan Hoch that Pettitte belongs in the Hall.

After former Yankee CC Sabathia was inducted into the Hall of Fame this offseason, he quickly endorsed his former teammate, Andy Pettitte.

Hunter Pence (Tri-City ValleyCats, 2004) and Andy Pettitte (Albany-Colonie Yankees, 1993-94) played minor league baseball a decade apart in the Capital Region. They missed being MLB

While Sabathia was a runaway choice in the Hall of Fame election, selected on 86.8% of the ballots by the Baseball Writers' Association of America – joining peers Ichiro Suzuki and Billy Wagner – this ultimate honor meant much, much more than just a museum plaque in Cooperstown, N.Y.

CC Sabathia adds another C to his name now, for Cooperstown, now that he becomes the latest great Yankee to become a first-ballot Hall of Famer.

Ichiro falls a vote short of being the second unanimous choice ever. CC makes it in his first year of eligibility, Wagner in his last. The recent ballot glut has cleared.

CC Sabathia remembers being awed by his first visit to the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, N.Y., saying he still gets goosebumps when he thinks about those hours wandering through the plaque gallery several years ago.

CC Sabathia is expected to be part of the National Baseball Hall of Fame’s Class of 2025, with the results of this year’s vote scheduled to be announced Tuesday evening.