Mowing the Lawn with CC Sabathia

(C.C. Sabathia surrounded by some nicely manicured grass. Credit: Flickr / Keith Allison)

CC Sabathia wasn?t always a star pitcher for the New York Yankees. As a 10-year-old growing up in Vallejo, Calif., circa 1990, he made money mowing his neighbors? lawns with an older cousin.

"I mostly just pushed the mower on to the next house," Sabathia told Popular Mechanics when we ran into him at a launch party for the incredibly realistic new PS3 game MLB 2012: The Show. "I wasn?t even old enough to do the mowing." Sabathia did, in fact, receive a cut of the mowing money, guessing that his cousin "just wanted company" while he worked.

But let?s get to the question on every PM reader?s mind. What kind of mower was it? "Big, old, heavy, red mower," Sabathia said. A Craftsman? "Yeah, I think maybe it was a Craftsman."

I had my own rookie season mowing lawns in Georgia around the same time Sabathia got started in California, and it seems plausible that we may have both used that particular model of Craftsman mower. Mine was a beast, with thick-gauged steel, a beefy Briggs engine, and a grass-catching bag that was heavy even while empty. You think that mower was self-propelled, like the machines PM tests today? Forget about it.

It?s a good thing Sabathia grew up when he did. Pushing that heap from house to house was instrumental in developing the upper body strength that would prove so critical to his career. Had he been born into an era of more sophisticated lawnmowers, CC could have wound up as slight of stature as San Francisco?s Tim Lincecum.

As far as current hands-on home repair tips, Sabathia recently repaired a broken chain on his son?s bicycle, but that?s about it?the big lefty didn?t share any favorite wrenches or drills. "Sorry, I got no more tool stories for you," he politely explained. For Yankee fans, this is probably good news. The ace starter spares his multimillion-dollar hands from stray hammer strikes, instead keeping focused on his mechanics at the mound.

Source: http://www.popularmechanics.com/how-to/blog/mowing-the-lawn-with-cc-sabathia?src=rss

dallas weather the killing fields the killing fields texas killing fields burzynski pete seeger gazelle