Why Los Angeles Dodgers great Clayton Kershaw agreed to a new biography
When Los Angeles Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw walked off the mound in Game One of the 2017 World Series, he had to be feeling good about his effort. Coming into that game, Kershaw had a 7-7 postseason record in his seven major league seasons, but against the Houston Astros that steamy night he’d given up just one run over seven innings while striking out 11 in a dominating win. But it was short-lived: Less than a week later, in Game Five, Kershaw would get lit up by the Astros, giving up six earned runs, getting yanked in the fourth inning and cementing a narrative for some fans as a guy who couldn’t get it done in the playoffs.
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A couple of years later, the Astros sign-stealing scandal would put Kershaw’s rough outing in a different light, but the three-time Cy Young winner finds himself in one of the most confounding positions in sports history: He’s an all-time top-shelf great — his 2.48 ERA is the best among all pitchers with at least 1,500 innings pitched since 1920, as are his 1.00 WHIP and .585 OPS allowed – who is also defined by a handful of playoff losses. Oddly, the highlights, like in 2016 when Kershaw pitched in relief to get his first career save and defeat the Nationals to go to the NLCS, are overlooked because they don’t fit the narrative.
The enigma that is the future Hall of Famer is the subject of “The Last of His Kind: Clayton Kershaw & the Burden of Greatness” by Andy McCullough, a former Los Angeles Times Dodgers beat writer who now covers all of MLB for The Athletic. McCullough spent time with the lanky lefty at his home in Highland Springs, Texas where Kershaw was raised. Kershaw is a child of divorce, and these formative years shaped his dedication to stability, both at home with his high school sweetheart-turned-wife Ellen and their four kids, and on the diamond where every fifth day is sacrosanct.
McCullough turns back the sportswriter’s clock and delivers a thorough biography with authorial authority – a Clayton Kershaw vanity project this is not. “The Last of His Kind” goes deep in the count on Kershaw’s thrilling victories, agonizing defeats, incredibly durable career, and going head-to-head with the one opponent who never loses, Father Time. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Q. “The Last of His Kind” is a straightforward biography. Given that big-time athletes often have final say in the narrative of their memoir or documentary, how did you get Kershaw to agree to the old-school writer-subject way?
Kershaw keeps a tight circle and doesn’t have layers of agents and managers. On major decisions, he consults Ellen and a few close friends, but there isn’t a large coterie of handlers. In May 2022, I approached him and said I wanted to write a book about his career and that I thought it would be a lot better if he participated. I’d interviewed him a lot over the years, so he has a sense of my process. There wasn’t much of a negotiation really.
I don’t think Clayton was particularly interested in a first-person sort of thing, but he’s aware of his accomplishments and his place in the game, so of course, he knows someone was going to write a book sooner than later. He’s not the most loquacious person, but he was incredibly available, and scheduled plenty of time to talk to me. I think Kershaw is unique in that way: No hoops to jump through.
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Q. Kershaw isn’t a big public personality with a million wild stories filling up notebooks, so how would you describe him to a casual fan?
For lack of a better term, he’s normal. He’s a down-to-earth dude. He loves to compete and is maniacal about his approach to pitching, but off the field, it’s primarily just family and faith. He genuinely loves hanging out with his kids. Kershaw isn’t an outlandish character, by any means, but he has his quirks and amusing characteristics. He loves breaking into phones to see who teammates dated when they were younger and he was such a fan of The New Girl he got himself a cameo with Zooey Deschanel. But yes, even after all these years in Los Angeles, his best friends are still the laptop class guys – bankers, tech, real estate – he grew up with Highland Park.
Kershaw’s parents divorced when he was 12; dad drifted away, mom struggled to stay afloat in the affluent suburb, so family stability is essential to him. His marriage grounds him. Clayton and Ellen have been together since their freshman year of high school and the genuine affection and affinity they have for one another is charming. It’s a big part of why Kershaw never really tested free agency, and even then only considered leaving the Dodgers for the Rangers, his hometown team.
Q: Before we get into the postseason disappointments, is it fair to say Kershaw’s playoff successes have been overshadowed?
He beat the Brewers in the 2020 playoffs to go to the NLDS with 13 strikeouts and no runs over eight innings, and I don’t even think that’s in the book! He’s had masterful performances, you can’t pitch any better than he did in Game One against the Astros. But I didn’t write the book as a defense of Kershaw, per se, because the numbers and outcomes are what they are. His playoff ERA is two points higher than in the regular season, but he’s painted with a broad brush as a “choker” and it’s far from the full story.
Q: Was Kershaw reticent at all to revisit these crushing losses?
No, Clayton gets it. He’s very self-aware and understands it’s baked into his legacy. He’s also good at moving on, although one loss is tougher than others. The remaining open wound is that Game Five loss to Houston. Knowing the Astros might have been cheating has made it tough to accept, he’s struggled to get beyond it. He framed it as living with PTSD.
Q. You do a great job in “The Last of His Kind” of showing how Kershaw’s playoff meltdowns accumulate and get lumped together over time, but each game has its own individual set of circumstances.
At the end of the day, he’s the future Hall-of-Famer atop the mountain, so he shoulders the responsibility of the outcome when he’s on the mound. But if you go back and watch a lot of these games – especially in the early years – and see how they play out, there are specific reasons why games unfolded the way they did.
Take the 2014 Cardinals NLDS Game One 10-9 loss to the Cardinals. At that time, it wasn’t as ubiquitously understood that historically, starting pitchers struggle the third time through the batting order, but the Dodgers bullpen wasn’t great that season either. The manager Don Mattingly and pitching coach Rick Honeycutt debated if they trusted Kershaw more than their relievers. In hindsight, a fresh arm would’ve obviously been better, but it wasn’t as ironclad a move as it is now. This isn’t to say Kershaw isn’t obstinate in believing in his abilities, for good reason, but the on-field stories behind his losses are much more interesting than simply, he fails again. I didn’t get granular with every game, but when you dig into the ones that went sideways, the results are often improbable but not inexplicable. What’s fascinating is how so much of Kershaw’s career comes down to “The Burden of Greatness.”
Q: I have Dodgers fans in my family and one of them said winning the 2020 World Series “doesn’t count” because the truncated COVID season. Is that a sentiment you’ve heard from the organization in any way?
In the immediate aftermath of winning, definitely not. The players saw it as a major triumph, in part because of the insanity of the COVID season. Kershaw felt it was a huge weight lifted off the Dodgers – the World Series is the World Series – and he still feels that way. Organizationally however, I do sense a shift over the last four years to downplay it because of their inability to get back to the World Series. Frustration is building, especially after the 2022 111-win Dodgers juggernaut squad lost the NLDS to an 89-win Padres team.
Personally, I feel like the 2020 World Series is legit. MLB put everyone’s health at risk playing that idiotic shortened season, so if it “doesn’t count,” what the heck are we even doing here?
Q: Lastly, how is Kershaw’s recovery going and what are the chances we’ve seen the last of “The Last of His Kind?”
After the 2023 season, he had capsule surgery on his left throwing shoulder, the first major procedure he’s undergone. Kershaw has been remarkable in his durability that way, but at 36, with all of his mileage, his body is by no means guaranteed to cooperate. He’s in good spirits rehabbing and hoping to be back in July or August. I asked him if he could live with his last game being the playoff loss to the Diamondbacks where he didn’t get out of the first inning. He said ‘I could be okay with it, but right now, I don’t have to be,’ meaning he is going to do whatever it takes to get back on the mound. I don’t know if it’s for his own edification or to shut people up, or more likely both, but he said it’s important he come back and have further postseason success. How long will he chase it if his body doesn’t bounce back? That I don’t know.
Q: It would be wild if Kershaw came back in late summer and went on a tear that lasted throughout the World Series…
People have speculated that he pitched better in the 2020 playoffs because he wasn’t gassed from carrying the Dodgers for an entire season. So maybe a last start in 2024 could benefit him in the postseason, which would be amazing… And not just for the paperback.