PHOTOS: Yankees’ CC Sabathia’s charity raises $1 million, honors Lesandro Guzman-Feliz

Yankees starting pitcher CC Sabathia’s charity raised about $1 million for inner city youth with celebrity softball game at Yankee Stadium on Thursday. Alex Rodriguez, Aaron Judge, Mariano Rivera and more appeared.

NEW YORK — CC Sabathia didn’t want to ask. Finally, when he worked out the courage to do it, the answer was yes, and it couldn’t have gone better.

Sabathia’s PitcchIn Foundation raised $1 million, according to a spokesperson, with a celebrity softball game at Yankee Stadium on Thursday night.

“This is something that I wanted to do for a long time, just didn’t work up the nerve to ask the Yankees to use the stadium,” Sabathia said.

@PitCChInFdn foundation honors Lesandro “Junior” Guzman-Feliz at Yankee Stadium #Yankees pic.twitter.com/o5zKDcmYCI

— Brendan Kuty (@BrendanKutyNJ) June 28, 2018

Eventually, his wife, Amber Sabathia, connected with good friend Jennifer Steinbrenner, Yankees vice chairperson, and the two made it happen.

“It’s a great thing,” he said. “Obviously, being able to come here to Yankee Stadium and have a charity event, but to raise that much money, it will be a huge thing for us and our foundation, we’ll be able to go out and renovate fields and do all the things that we love to do.”

“This is something that I wanted to do for a long time, just didn’t work up the nerve to ask the Yankees to use the stadium. But Amber and Jennie Steinbrenner have a really good relationship so I’ll let her make that ask.”

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Sabathia’s foundation raises money for inner city youth initiatives. 

“I knew that if we could get the stadium, that people would want to come here and play,” Sabathia said. “I thought that would be a big selling point, to come to play to Yankee Stadium and play a softball game.”

Several Yankees participated, including Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton and Didi Gregorius. Yankees greats Mariano Rivera and Jorge Posada also appeared. Alex Rodriguez showed up with Jennifer Lopez.

Before the game, there was a moment of silence for Lesandro “Feliz” Guzman-Feliz, a 15-year-old Bronx native who was murdered by five men in a gang attack last week. Participants wore “LGF” patches on their jerseys.

Brendan Kuty may be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @BrendanKutyNJ. Find NJ.com Yankees on Facebook.