Frank White will never forget that day in Cleveland back in 2001. He was coaching for the Royals then, and the team was dreadful and even though it was early May, the season already felt like a lost cause. The Royals had one of their best prospects on the mound, Dan Reichert, a skinny right-handed pitcher with supposedly nasty stuff that he had trouble throwing over the plate. Reichert had been the Royals&#8217; first pick in the 1997 draft.</p><p>The Indians, meanwhile, sent out one of <em>their</em> best prospects. He was a gargantuan left-handed pitcher, 6 feet 7, he had to weigh 250 pounds. He threw 97 mph. He had a nasty slider. He was 20 years old and already pretty close to unhittable. His name was CC Sabathia.</p><p>The game went as you might expect. Reichert got ripped pretty good; he would be waived by the Royals the next year. Sabathia pitched five overpowering innings, allowed only one run, got the victory. He had an unmistakable presence; he would go 17-5 and lead the American League in fewest hits per nine innings pitched.</p><p>And on the bench, Frank White asked what has become a classic Royals question: &#8220;Why is it that our first-round picks look like that, and everyone else&#8217;s first-round picks look like <em>that</em>?&#8221;</p><p>Here it is, eight years later, and CC Sabathia still looks like <em>that</em>. Well, anyway, he did on Saturday night in Kansas City against a Royals lineup that, frankly, did not stand a chance against him. The situation with Sabathia has changed from when he was an overpowering rookie in 2001, of course. Now Sabathia has a Cy Young Award on his mantel. Now, he pitches for the New York Yankees. Now, he&#8217;s the recipient of a seven-year, $161 million contract, the largest contract ever signed by a pitcher. Now, Sabathia is widely viewed as the key player in the Yankees&#8217; attempt to buy their way back into glory.</p><p>It is that last sentence that made Saturday an important start for Sabathia. You probably know he got roughed up in his first start for the Yankees. He only managed to go 4 1/3 innings against Baltimore. He gave up six runs. The most stunning part of all was that he walked five and did not strike out anybody &#8212; this from a guy who last year struck out 259 batters and walked just 59. Yankees fans, in general, took the one bad outing in stride, as you might expect from the people who invented the Bronx cheer.</p><p>&#8220;CC, Tex Stink It Up In Opener,&#8221; was the headline in the <em>New York Post</em>, as they welcomed Sabathia and another big-money addition, Mark Teixeira, to the Yankees.</p><p>&#8220;Heating Pad and Low Velocity Have Skeptics&#8217; Heat On CC Sabathia,&#8221; was the headline in the <em>New York Daily News </em>after television cameras showed Sabathia with a heading pad on his arm in the dugout.</p><p>&#8220;He&#8217;s a waste of money,&#8221; seemed to be the general talk radio consensus.</p><p>Well, this is what it is to play for the New York Yankees. You get the biggest money, the loudest cheers, and you get to wake up in the city that doesn&#8217;t sleep. You also get seriously skewered when you don&#8217;t play well. You either handle it or you can&#8217;t make it there.</p><p>So, yes, the skeptics&#8217; heat Saturday was on Sabathia, even if it was only his second start of the year. He felt good as he warmed up.</p><p>&#8220;I could tell from the first pitch he threw in the bullpen he was going to be great today,&#8221; Yankees catcher Jorge Posada would say after the game.</p><p>And he was great, from the first strikeout of Royals leadoff hitter Coco Crisp (a 96-mph fastball over the inside corner of the plate) to the final lineout by David DeJesus (a 95-mph fastball that probably caught a little too much of the plate). If you want the numbers, Sabathia pitched 7 2/3 innings, he struck out six, he did not walk anybody, and it goes without saying that the Royals did not score a run while he was in there. The Royals are having trouble scoring against anybody &#8212; they never came close to scoring against Sabathia.