CLEVELAND — The night began at Progressive Field with knee-jerk boos for anyone wearing a Yankees or Cubs uniform.

By the time the 2019 All-Star Game concluded Tuesday, however, the Yankees had nearly stolen the show.

Indians pitcher Shane Bieber, who struck out the side in the fifth inning of the American League’s 4-3 victory over the National League, earned Most Valuable Player honors. Yet the boxscore will show that a pair of Yankees, Masahiro Tanaka and Aroldis Chapman, earned the win and the save, respectively. And those who attended saw CC Sabathia, drafted and developed by the Indians and who was here as only an honorary member, get standing ovations to both open and close the festivities.

“The whole two days being here, the fan reception, just the way the fans have received me, they didn’t have to treat me like an All-Star,” Sabathia said afterward. “But they did. It’s been a cool experience.”

“It was a great game for us,” Chapman said through an interpreter.

Sabathia, who will retire at the conclusion of this season, threw the ceremonial first pitch to beloved Indians catcher Sandy Alomar Jr., both men getting showered with love. Then, after Chapman struck out J.T. Realmuto and Max Muncy to open the top of the ninth inning, he received a surprise visitor to the mound: Sabathia.

“When I saw him out there at the beginning, I thought he was going to take me out of the game,” Chapman said. “I looked over to the bullpen, and no one was warming up. So things aren’t making sense. Once he gets there, he tells me, ‘I’m just checking on you and seeing how you are.’ ”

On his walk back to the home dugout, which he called home for the first seven years of his big-league career, Sabathia got one last ovation.

“[AL manager] Alex [Cora] and [coach] Ramon Vazquez came to me and were like, ‘If Chappy gets out there, do you want to make a mound visit?’ I was like, ‘Yeah, sure, why not?’ ” Sabathia said. “It just came about. That was a pretty cool moment.”

“We all know he’s going to retire,” said Cora, Sabathia’s Indians teammate in 2005, “so we wanted to let everybody know who he is. And I think it was a nice tribute.”

Before the game, Cora asked Sabathia to address the team. “It was terrible,” Sabathia said. “It worked. We won.”

“You know, when he spoke to us before the game, I’ve got to say, that’s the first time I’ve seen him a little nervous,” Chapman said. “He’s never nervous. That one time, he was a little nervous. It was a great moment, understanding that it’s his last season. Great experience. Something I will always cherish.”

Tanaka threw a shutout second inning, and when the AL took the lead in the bottom of the inning on a single by Alex Bregman and a double by former Indian Michael Brantley (whom the crowd warmly welcomed back) and didn’t give up that lead, the Yankees’ sixth-year veteran picked up the win … five years after he first hoped to pitch in this game. He made the 2014 AL team in his stellar rookie year, only to suffer a serious right elbow ailment shortly before the game.

“I got injured and I wasn’t able to go,” Tanaka said, through an interpreter, after he pitched. “That was consuming my mind at that time. But as years passed, you look back and you feel like you wanted to go to that stage.”

Added Tanaka: “It is a very special day for me.”

“Masa was awesome,” Sabathia said. “It was good to see him here. Obviously, if he didn’t get hurt his first year, he would’ve started the All-Star Game. To see him back here [and] pitch well was good.”

It was all good for the Yankees on this night. And now they’ll aim to make their manager Aaron Boone the AL skipper for next year’s Midsummer Classic.