Vallejo native CC Sabathia has his summer vacation destination planned out. He’s headed to Cooperstown.

In his first year of eligibility, Sabathia was one of three players elected on Tuesday afternoon to the Major League Baseball. Hall of Fame. The big lefthander who pitched for the Cleveland Indians, Milwaukee Brewers and New York Yankees received 86.8 percent of the vote, easily making the 75 percent threshold.

“FIRST BALLOT HALL OF FAMER!!!!! I LOVE YOU ALL!!!,” Sabathia wrote on X (formerly Twitter) just minutes after the announcement was made on MLB Network. “Congrats to Ichiro and Billy!! So well deserved and honored to enter this @baseballhall fraternity with you. Legends of the game immortalized. HOF.

“From now on it’s Hall of Famer Carsten Charles Sabathia. Dream come true!!! Feeling so blessed.”

Sabathia retired after the 2019 season, ending a career that featured a Cy Young Award in 2007 and a World Series title with the Yankees in 2009. The lefty eventually registered 251 wins and 3,093 strikeouts.

Although Sabathia has said that the process is “out of my control and up to the writers” he was excited about the possibility the day before the selection, writing on X: “Feels like Christmas Eve.” On Tuesday morning he also posted a video of Eddie Murphy waking up and celebrating in the film, “Coming to America.”

Moments after learning he was inducted, Sabathia received cheers and hugs from his wife Amber and three of their four kids, one of which was away at college.“It means everything to me. Just to go in the Hall of Fame in general, is a big honor,” Sabathia said on MLB Network. “But to go in first ballot, I know what that means as a baseball player is super exciting.”

MLB Network’s Bob Costas said the one thing that separated Sabathia from other pitchers was his willingness to take the ball. Over the last 30 years no pitcher has thrown as many innings as the Vallejo native, who started 11 Opening Day games.

“Yeah that was something that was important to me was to be available and take the ball as many times as possible and be available,” Sabathia said.

Sabathia gave credit to Carl Willis for his mechanics.

“When I got drafted I was more of just a baseball player than just a pitcher,” Sabathia said on MLB Network. “I played first base, I played the outfield as a kid. When I came to the Cleveland organization Carl Willis was responsible for me sitting on this couch today. He taught me how to throw a four-seamer, taught me how to throw a slider, how to throw a change up, so literally my whole arsenal, everything from my delivery to the pitches I threw all came from Carl Willis.”

Another important coach for Sabathia was his coach at Vallejo High School, Abe Hobbs.

“He was just 23 years old (at the time), an excitable, scrappy little guy who’d grown up in Vallejo and played college ball at Western Oregon,” Sabathia wrote with Chris Smith in their book “Till the End.” “He had a crew cut and looked like a Marine. In many ways we could not have been more different, but the things we had in common were powerful. Hobbs was a baseball guy, he cared deeply about people, and we became tremendously close. Still are.”

Hobbs said Saturday that if asked, he would gladly make the trip to Cooperstown, N.Y., to be in attendance.

“I think his career speaks for itself,” Hobbs said. “His body of work in the game is not parallel with too many others. I remember how competitive he was pitching for me and he was part of a great group of guys that had a lot of joy and passion when playing the game. Not just baseball, but on the football field and in the gym playing hoop. He knows how proud of him I am and I’m hoping for more blessings to come his way.”

Sabathia has constantly said it’s the honors of his off-the-field work that mean the most. Aside from the backpacks, Sabathia annually hosts a free baseball camp for kids.

Ichiro Suzuki, Billy Wagner elected to Baseball Hall of Fame >> Ichiro Suzuki became the first Japanese player chosen for baseball’s Hall of Fame, falling one vote shy of unanimous when he was elected Tuesday along with CC Sabathia and Billy Wagner.

Suzuki received 393 of 394 votes from the Baseball Writers’ Association of America. Wagner on 325, which was 29 more than the 296 needed for the required 75%.

Suzuki came to Major League Baseball from Japan as a 27-year-old in 2001 and joined Fred Lynn in 1975 as the only players to win AL Rookie of the Year and AL MVP in the same season. He was a two-time AL batting champion and 10-time All-Star and Gold Glove outfielder, hitting .311 with 117 homers, 780 RBIs and 509 stolen bases with Seattle (2001-12, 2018-19), the New York Yankees (2012-14) and Miami (2015-17).

Carlos Beltrán fell 19 votes short of election with 277 and was followed by Andruw Jones with 261.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.