The Sabathias live in Alpine, N.J., one of the ritziest locales in the New York City area.
Credit...Jonah Rosenberg for The New York Times

C. C. Sabathia Ruled Yankee Stadium. Now He’s the King of Halloween.

by · NY Times

For trick-or-treaters, Alpine, N.J., is the land of plenty.

There’s the house that hands out $10 gift cards and the one that gives every child an entire unopened bag of miniature candy bars. There’s the family that slings hot dogs and popcorn and the one that hires actors for the day to putter around the yard dressed like zombies.

But even amid this sea of well-to-do revelry, one retired New York Yankee’s house is the marquee stop.

Reggie Jackson may be Mr. October. But to the trick-or-treaters of northern New Jersey, C. C. Sabathia is Mr. October 31st.

“C. C.’s house is the pinnacle,” said Sheldon Neal, a father of two from nearby Paramus. “Just an amazing dedication to his craft.”

That craft was once left-handed pitching, at which Mr. Sabathia excelled for 19 seasons, 11 of them with the Yankees. His résumé has placed him at the doorstep of baseball’s Hall of Fame.

But since retiring in 2019, Mr. Sabathia has traded in his pinstripes for a series of increasingly elaborate Halloween costumes, often punctuated with Hollywood-grade makeup and prosthetics, and movie-set-style decorations to match.

“It’s not a joke around here,” said Mr. Sabathia, who is often unrecognizable in these costumes, save for his 6-foot-6 frame. “I think I get more out of it than the kids do.”

The family works with professional makeup artists each year to create their elaborate costumes. Credit...Sabathia Family

Every year, with the help of a small army of makeup and costume artists, members of the Sabathia family become characters from some beloved pop culture entity. Mr. Sabathia has in recent years dressed as Vecna from “Stranger Things,” Shredder from the Ninja Turtles and Thanos from “Guardians of the Galaxy,” to name a few.

To top it off, the Sabathias personally ply the hordes of sweets-seeking visitors with the kind of king-size candy more commonly seen in movie theaters.

Mr. Sabathia’s wife, Amber Sabathia, is essentially the executive producer of the operation. She estimates that between 2,000 and 3,000 children stop by their home each year.

As those numbers have kept growing, certain accommodations have had to be made. The local police now close down the street for the afternoon. And the family institutes a crowd control queuing system for the children, who start gathering outside the Sabathias’ gate as soon as school lets out.

“It looks like you’re at Disneyland trying to ride the Matterhorn,” said Walter Welsh, a special effects makeup and costume designer for film and television who has worked with the family since 2018. “It’s wild to see.”

The Sabathias’ house is well known for its Hollywood-grade decorations.
Credit...Jonah Rosenberg for The New York Times

While waiting, families have access to portable restrooms, picnic tables to rest their legs and carts serving complimentary hot dogs, chips and various cold refreshments. Ms. Sabathia said she had recently begun envisioning her home as a “Halloween pit stop, not a trick-or-treat spot.”

Eventually, the trick-or-treaters make their way into the Sabathias’ enormous garage, where they’re presented with an almost overwhelming spread of king-size candies. They’re allowed to pick two. And before they leave, families can meet the Sabathias and pose for pictures with them.

“The Sabathia family — oh my God — my kids will have those memories for the rest of their lives,” said Rebecca LaPira, of neighboring Demarest, who has waited up to 45 minutes in line with her children.

Alpine, hidden away in the northeastern corner of the state, along the Hudson River, is quietly one of the ritziest locales in the greater New York City area, with home prices comparable to the Hamptons, Tribeca and Greenwich, Conn.

The comedian Chris Rock, in a well-known bit, once revealed that his fellow Alpine residents included other Black superstars like Eddie Murphy, Mary J. Blige and Jay-Z. (The punchline was that his next-door neighbor was a white dentist, of no particular acclaim.)

Ms. LaPira, a real estate agent, once regularly compiled a list of celebrity homes in the area for trick-or-treating purposes — though she stopped when some residents objected. She said the Sabathias were the most welcoming of the bigwig families, always on hand to personally greet their many guests.

“The gates of the Alpine homes are closed pretty much year round,” Ms. LaPira said, “but one day a year, on Halloween, they’re open, and it’s fun to see how the other half lives.”

Mr. Sabathia developed a love for Halloween while growing up in Vallejo, Calif. He said his oldest memory of the holiday was dressing up as Garfield, with a flimsy plastic mask, and going to a pumpkin patch with his grandmother.

Later in childhood, he became obsessed with Michael Jackson and would repeatedly watch a documentary on VHS tape about the making of “Thriller.”

“The makeup, the transformation of him going from himself to the monster, that was super cool to me,” Mr. Sabathia said. “After that I always wanted to get into the craziest makeup possible.”

Mr. Sabathia is no Halloween dilettante: Mr. Welsh, the makeup and costume artist, said Mr. Sabathia surprised him recently by bantering about Rick Baker — a seven-time Academy Award winner for makeup design, but not exactly a household name.

In his wife, Mr. Sabathia found a kindred spirit. Among the couple’s early dates was a memorable visit to a haunted house in San Diego, where he kept flinching at the cheesy jump scares.

“I was cracking up,” Ms. Sabathia said. “You’re such a big guy, but you’re scared of an actor holding a fake chain saw.”

The family moved to Alpine in 2009, after Mr. Sabathia signed a seven-year, $161 million deal with the Yankees, and quickly realized that Halloween in the neighborhood operated on another level.

The candy bars were comically large. Houses had performers outside walking on stilts. One family rented a hearse to park in its driveway as a kind of elaborate prop.

“They were like, ‘Welcome to the neighborhood. This is what we do,’” Ms. Sabathia said, laughing. “I’m so competitive. I’m like, ‘OK, I’m doing this.’”

Now, the Sabathias begin planning for Halloween in August, firing up a group chat with a squad of specialists who help them realize their vision. Along with Mr. Welsh, the team includes Douglas Otero, a celebrity makeup artist, and Ashlee Muhammad, a stylist.

The Sabathias begin planning for Halloween in August, firing up a group chat with a squad of specialists who help them realize their vision. Credit...Jonah Rosenberg for The New York Times

Ms. Sabathia declined to disclosed the total cost of the setup, saying she preferred not to “humble brag.” Mr. Welsh would not reveal the cost of his costumes, only conceding that they were “expensive.”

Mr. Welsh, twice a finalist on “Face Off,” a special effects makeup reality show, said he spent about 60 hours fabricating Mr. Sabathia’s costume last year and another 80 hours on his wife’s get-up. Transforming into a pair of hideous monsters from the show “Stranger Things” — Vecna and the Demogorgon — the couple spent hours in makeup chairs, leaving them essentially unrecognizable.

“Amber wants to be the scariest thing every year,” Mr. Welsh said. “She wants the most intense makeup. She’ll get upset if she isn’t more intense. She wants more stuff glued to her.”

This year will be the first time that Mr. Sabathia’s children — two in high school, two in college — will not participate in the family’s Halloween production, a development that inspired a lengthy, mildly exasperated soliloquy from him about parenthood.

“I don’t know if they totally ever bought in,” Mr. Sabathia said, sighing. “I think it was forced on them. It is what it is. I think they’re over it. I think they were over it a long time ago. But to be honest, we’re over them.”

It doesn’t matter, he said. His children can do whatever they want.

For all the talk about how much joy the costumes and decorations and candy has engendered in others, Mr. Sabathia emphasized that there was no one more enthusiastic about it all than himself.

“I’ll be dressing up forever,” he said, “whether people come by or not.”

Around the New York Region

A look at life, culture, politics and more in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.