The Last of His Kind
Clayton Kershaw and the Burden of Greatness
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4.5 • 15 Ratings
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- $17.99
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- $17.99
Publisher Description
The definitive biography of Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw, examining the genesis of his brilliance, his epic quest to win the World Series, and his singular place within the evolving baseball landscape—based on exclusive interviews with Kershaw and more than 200 others.
More than any baseball player of his generation, Clayton Kershaw has embodied the burden of athletic greatness, the prizes and perils that await those who strive for it all. He is a three-time Cy Young award winner, the first pitcher to win National League MVP since Bob Gibson, and a surefire, first-ballot Hall of Famer. Many of his peers consider him the greatest pitcher to ever climb atop a big-league mound.
In an age when baseball became more impersonal, a sport altered by adherence to algorithms and actuarial tables, Kershaw personified the game’s lingering humanity, with his joy and suffering on display each October as he chased a championship. He pitched through pain, placing his future at risk on the game’s grandest stages. He endeared himself to teammates and foes alike with his refusal to make excuses, with his willingness to shoulder the blame when he failed. And he only further impressed them when he returned, year after year, even as his body broke down from the strain of his profession. The journey captivated fans in Los Angeles and beyond, so much so that when the Dodgers finally won a title in 2020, the baseball world exulted in his triumph.
The Last of His Kind traces Kershaw’s path from a boyhood fractured by divorce to his development as one of the most-heralded pitching prospects in Texas history to his emergence in Los Angeles as the spiritual heir to Sandy Koufax. But the book also charts Kershaw’s place in baseball’s changing landscape, as his own stubbornness butted against the game’s evolution. The story of baseball in the 21st century can be told through Kershaw’s career, from his apprenticeship with icons like Joe Torre and Greg Maddux, to his wary relationship with the implementation of analytics, to his victimhood in the 2017 sign-stealing scandal at the hands of the Houston Astros. The game has changed so much during Kershaw’s illustrious career. To understand how baseball is played today, and how it got that way, you must understand the journey of Clayton Kershaw.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Athletic writer McCullough debuts with a commanding biography of the Los Angeles Dodgers' ace pitcher. According to McCullough, Kershaw was profoundly influenced by his high school sweetheart, Ellen Melson, whom he married in 2010. Early on in their relationship, Ellen, a devout Presbyterian, encouraged Kershaw to see God at work in his life, leading him to view his burgeoning athletic talent as a divine gift and to double down on his dedication to baseball. McCullough offers a granular account of how Kershaw navigated the scouting process (the Florida Marlins "chided him for wearing shorts and a T-shirt" to a meeting), traces the pitcher's rise to the top of the pros after getting drafted by the Dodgers in 2006, and recreates the highs and lows of Kershaw's quest for a World Series title, which he attained in 2020 after a near miss in 2017. (That year, the Dodgers lost the series to the Houston Astros, who were later found to have engaged in illegal sign-stealing.) McCullough enriches his narrative with humanizing detail (Kershaw once rebuffed Samuel L. Jackson for upsetting his rigid game-day routine with a visit to the Dodgers locker room), offering an intimate portrait of an athlete who understands that to stay on top, "he could never stay satisfied" yet "could also never lose what made him special." Dodgers fans should consider this a must.
