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When Clayton Kershaw next takes the mound, he will do so as a different man. He won the World Series. He removed his name from the list of top players never to win a title. He rewrote the narrative around him, the one that said he couldn’t pitch the playoffs.
But that’s not what people closest to him will notice. For the first time in over a decade, he will wear a new glove.
Kelly Gavin / MLB Photos / Getty Images
In 2008, his rookie year, Kershaw used a wide strap glove. In ’09 he switched to the black Wilson A2000-CK22. (“As narcissistic as it sounds, I think it’s the Kershaw model,” he says.) He hasn’t pitched a match without him since.
It was the glove he lifted in triumph through eight All-Star seasons, three Cy Young Awards, an MVP. It was also the glove he hit in frustration every October, when one miserable round ruined most of his starts.
But he is the author of two of the best postseason games of his life in the World Series: six innings, one inning in game one; 5 2/3 innings, two runs in Game 5. He decided that if the Dodgers finished the Rays, he would frame that shabby old Wilson. They did it. So he will.
“He achieved his goal,” he says.
So in some ways does he. When the Dodgers won their first pennant in 29 years, in 2017, a defeated Kershaw said he could retire if he won the World Series. Three years later, he finally won it.
He even found an advantage in baseball’s most unusual October setup: In response to the pandemic, the MLB moved the playoffs to neutral venues, and the Dodgers spent most of October in Arlington, Texas, a few miles from Kershaw’s home during the offseason. He celebrated his coronation in front of dozens of friends and family.
He won everything he ever wanted for his career. But there is also some loss. “In terms of my profession, I only had one goal, and that was to win a World Series,” he says.
And now?
Cooper Neill / MLB Photos / Getty Images
***
In the moments before Kershaw lifted the trophy, he struggled to figure out what to do with himself. He had spent Game 6 in the bullpen, manager Dave Roberts’ option to break glass for extra innings. Kershaw found it easy to focus in the opening frames when the game was tight. But after right fielder Mookie Betts hit a homer in the eighth to extend the Dodgers’ lead to 3–1, Kershaw knew they were on point. He threw a baseball at the wall. He pantomimmed her childbirth. He brought his shirt back. He kicked the rubber. He slipped his glove under his right arm and passed a ball from hand to hand. He sat down. He rocked forward. He rocked back. He got up.
“Fair anguishHe says now. “Fair, hurry up and win this game!“
Then, finally, they did. As the final slipped into receiver Austin Barnes’ glove, most of the Dodgers in the dugout and reliever box burst onto the field. Kershaw threw his arms in the air, then took his time running towards the mound. In the days that followed, he joked that it was his top speed. The truth is, he wanted to absorb the feeling that flooded him. He was surprised to find that it was not joy. It was a relief.
“The burden has eased,” he says. He hadn’t fully realized it was there. He knew intellectually that he was carrying the weight of all these years, all these failures. But he didn’t understand until he was gone that he shouldn’t be there. “It was just a normal life,” he says. “Like, this is how you feel.”
By the time he held the trophy in his left arm and his 10-month-old son Cooper in his right, he was overjoyed. But Kershaw’s favorite moment of the night is telling.
“After failing in so many playoffs and having to look your teammates in the eye at the end of the season, you feel really bad,” he says. Letting go was bad enough. He couldn’t bear to do the same to the men who had sweated next to him.
“Being able to kiss my teammates after that was probably one of the best parts of it all,” he says. “Just to say thank you.”
Aside from the hour spent milling around the field in their new WORLD SERIES CHAMPIONS equipment, the Dodgers mostly lacked the traditional attributes of the winner. There had been preparations for a champagne celebration and a post-game party, but these were scrapped when third baseman Justin Turner’s COVID-19 test result returned in the seventh inning. Players were not allowed to invite their families to the clubhouse. They couldn’t congregate in large numbers at the nearby Four Seasons, where they had been curled up from the Division Series. There was no alcohol-soaked return flight, no crowds of fans waiting at the airport, no parade.
Kershaw and a handful of others drained a few beers at the hotel, then went to bed around 4 a.m. He was up a few hours later to appear on the Today to show. The Kershaws had packed up their home in Los Angeles and sent their cars back to Dallas, so all that remained was to leave the suite that had housed them last month. He and his wife Ellen took Cali, five, Charley, three, and baby Cooper in the car. Twenty minutes later they were home.
***
Some people wake up in the morning after winning their first title and feel empty. Kershaw is developing more and more every day. “I keep telling myself this,” he said. “We won a World Series in the city of LA after 32 years. It’s finish. We did it. It’s the feeling that I was always looking for, this feeling of, like, completion. We did it, and that doesn’t mean we don’t want to win next year, just the fact that we did it this year, and it’s over, and we can have normal expectations. during the year will be awesome. “
He laughs now, remembering his emotions on that happy night in 2017 when the Dodgers beat the Cubs in the NLCS, when Kershaw’s post-season tale was a few chapters shorter. The 2017 Dodgers fell in seven games to the Astros, who later admitted to carrying out a team-wide cheating scheme. In Game 5, Kershaw had four points, then three points. He launched 39 cursors. The Astros swung and missed one. He has not retired.
People started talking more about what he hadn’t done than about being the best pitcher of his generation. Some have speculated that he would never be dominant again. But this year, at 32, he produced a 2.16 ERA, his best mark in half a decade. For the first time in his career, Los Angeles did not ask him to pitch on a short rest or as a playoff reliever.
He is not ready to retire, he says. He still loves baseball. He still feels good. He still wants to keep playing. “If that was that thing I was hanging out with, I would go up at sunset for sure,” he says. “I don’t feel like that at all.”
Kershaw has yet to begin his off-season training program. When he does, he will face a new challenge: he spent 32 years as one. And now it’s someone else.
“Anytime I’ve pitched in the past, there’s everything that goes with me, right?” he says. “All of these things that people say. And I think it helped me a bit, just the continuation of the journey. Hey, I can’t let go. I have to be perfect every time. It may not be there anymore. I’ll have to create an advantage. It might help me in the long run, as well as not carrying this burden.
Instead, he’ll wear a new one. He will have to find new sources of motivation. It will have to aim for additional objectives. He will have to find out who he is now that he is champion. And he will have to do it with a new glove.
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