At six feet, seven inches and a few meals short of 300 pounds, CC Sabathia is not the guy you want to talk tough to in the club. Well, someone had that death wish and the New York Yankees pitcher was very close to being involved in a nightclub melee that would have made your standard bench-clearing baseball brawl look like thumb wrestling.

Exclusive TMZ Sports footage shows bodies hitting the pavement and Sabathia being held back and pushed into a car to avoid joining a massive street fight that allegedly took place outside EFS nightclub early Saturday morning in Toronto.

The Yankees were coming off a Friday night victory over the Blue Jays and although it's unclear what sparked the fight, hecklers were heard yelling "Go Blue Jays" in Sabathia's direction. The pitcher clearly looks ready to jump into the fray, but seems to have been successfully held back by a friend. Kudos to that guy for the Herculean effort to keep Sabathia out of the fight.

He won't be starting in the Yankees' home game against the Minnesota Twins on Monday night. It is not clear if the incident had anything do with him being scratched from the scheduled start.

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(Photo: Elsa/Getty Images)