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Clayton Kershaw’s Dodger Stadium career ending

LOS ANGELES — Clayton Kershaw, for the most part, is doing his best to avoid the sentimentality in all this. But he isnâ€t numb to it either. Lately, heâ€s been starting to notice the little things that heâ€s just now doing for the final time.

For instance: Last week, when Kershaw finished watching video of Blue Jays hitters, then finished poring over the numbers and had fully mapped out his gameplan … he exhaled. This thought popped into his mind:

“I just prepared for the Blue Jays,†Kershaw said at Thursdayâ€s World Series media day. “The last scouting report Iâ€ll ever have to do.â€

“No, that one feels good,†Kershaw said, breaking into a wry grin. “No more homework.â€

OK, so his final scouting report did not pull on Kershawâ€s heartstrings. But this might: Kershaw is set to begin what is essentially his final three-game series at Dodger Stadium. As it would happen, it comes in Games 3, 4 and 5 of the World Series.

On Monday, Kershaw will have his name announced to the Dodger Stadium crowd during introductions for the final time. Heâ€s on the World Series roster, but it remains unclear if a situation would arise where Kershaw would be called upon to pitch. A future Hall of Famer in the twilight of his career, Kershaw isnâ€t expected to handle any high-leverage work. If anything, he would pitch in mop-up duty.

Across his 18-year career, he has taken the Dodger Stadium mound precisely 250 times in the regular and postseason. The next time might be the last time.

“Iâ€m not good at the emotion thing,†Kershaw said at World Series media day. “Itâ€s special, I know that. I think once I announced that I wasnâ€t going to be playing last year, you just think about everything in terms of your last time. … Itâ€s just really cool that all thatâ€s happening in the World Series.â€

Kershawâ€s accolades are almost too numerous to count. Heâ€s an 11-time All-Star, a three-time Cy Young Award winner, owner of five ERA titles and the 2014 National League MVP. Earlier this season, Kershaw recorded his 3,000th strikeout. Now heâ€s eyeing his third World Series.

Kershaw, who debuted in 2008, is a link to a different era of Dodger baseball. In his first four full seasons in the big leagues, the Dodgers did not make the playoffs. In each of his next 13, they did.

“Every fifth, sixth day that we needed him, he just kept doing it over and over again — 18 years,†said Freddie Freeman, who was on hand for the last four of those years. “Heâ€s just a special player. There are one of ones — and weâ€ve got a couple of them on this team right now. But Clayton is definitely one of one.â€

Tyler Glasnow, who will get the start in Game 3 on Monday night, grew up a Dodgers fan in Santa Clarita.

“He was always one of my favorite players,†Glasnow said. “Just to be able to be his teammate, just even coming in, walking around Dodger Stadium, and now Iâ€m able to play with him — itâ€s just super surreal. I feel like itâ€ll probably kick in when itâ€s all said and done for me. But heâ€s just been an awesome teammate.â€

Really, thatâ€s where Kershawâ€s focus is right now. When he made the World Series roster, it meant his career wasnâ€t over yet. He could still impact the World Series, even if it wasnâ€t in his traditional role at the front of the rotation.

“He’s handled this last month with class, professionalism,†said Dodgers manager Dave Roberts. “All the while, he’s always said that he wants to do anything he can to help the team. He’s followed through on that. All the stuff — finishing out the season and how everything kind of played out — was a lot on his plate. He handled it with grace. And then the uncertainty of role, going to the â€pen — he’s just fallen in line. So he’s adjusted his workout regimen, throwing program, to be ready when called upon.â€

Roberts was also asked about his plans for using Kershaw and noted that his first priority would be winning the World Series. Obviously. But …

“I would love to get him into one of these games,†Roberts said. “If the situation is right.â€

For now, all Kershaw is doing is preparing himself for that situation. And in the process, heâ€s doing everything for the final time.

“Iâ€ve thought about it a lot,†Kershaw said. “Like, itâ€s maybe the last time to get loose, maybe the last time to do an armband, the last time to try to figure out how to get somebody out. All that stuff. Itâ€s a weird time. Itâ€s a lot of different emotions for me right now.

“But at the end of the day, itâ€s a lot of good emotions. Itâ€s gratefulness, contentment, at peace — all those things.â€

Sonja Chen contributed additional reporting to this story.

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Baseball

‘A good message.’ Why celebrating Clayton Kershaw’s retirement gave Dodgers mental ‘reset’

As Dodgers players packed in for Clayton Kershawâ€s retirement news conference last Thursday, Freddie Freeman waved the Kershaw family to a row of seats at the front of the room.

He wanted Kershaw’s wife, Ellen, and their four kids in front of the pitcher right when he sat down at the dais at Dodger Stadium.

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How else, Freeman joked, could they get the future Hall of Famer to cry?

Turned out, in a 14-minute address announcing his retirement from baseball at the end of this season, Kershaw did get choked up from behind the mic. But, it happened first when he addressed his teammates. They, he told him, were who he was going to miss most.

“The hardest one is the teammates, so I’m not even going to look at you guys in the eye,†Kershaw said, his eyes quickly turning red. “Just you guys sitting in this room, you mean so much to me. We have so much fun. I’m going to miss it.â€

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“The game in and of itself, I’m going to miss a lot, but I’ll be OK without that,†he later added. “I think the hard part is the feeling after a win, celebrating with you guys. That’s pretty special.â€

Days later, that message continues to reverberate.

For the Dodgers, it served as a reminder and a reset.

Ever since early July, the team had lived in a world blanketed by frustration and wracked with repeated misery. Many players were hurt or uncharacteristically slumping. The team as a whole endured an extended sub-.500 skid. Behind inconsistent offense and unreliable bullpen pitching, a big division lead dwindled. Visions of 120-win grandeur were meekly dashed.

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Amid that slump, the clubâ€s focus drifted. From team production to individual mechanics. From collective urgency to internal dissatisfaction.

“Everyone on this team has been so busy this year trying to perfect their craft,†third baseman Max Muncy said, “that sometimes we forget about that moment of just hanging out and enjoying what weâ€re going through. “

Or, as Kershaw put it after his final regular-season Dodger Stadium start on Friday, “the collective effort to do something hard together.â€

“All that stuff is just so impactful, so meaningful,†Kershaw explained.

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And if it had gone missing during the depths of mostly difficult summer months, Kershawâ€s retirement has thrust it back to the forefront.

“I do think it helps reset,†Muncy said. “Over the course of seven, eight months, you see each other every day and sometimes you take that a little bit for granted … Itâ€s not something that anyone forgot. But sometimes you need a refresher. I think that was a good moment for it.â€

Donâ€t mistake this as a “Win one for Kersh!†attitude. The Dodgers insisted they needed no extra motivation to defend their title, even after whatâ€s been a turbulent repeat campaign.

But, both players and coaches have noted recently, their efforts this year have sometimes felt misplaced. The togetherness they lauded during last yearâ€s championship march hadnâ€t always been replicated. A pall was cast over much of the second half.

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“When youâ€re not winning games, itâ€s not fun,†veteran infielder Miguel Rojas said earlier this month. “But at the end of the day, we gotta put all that aside. … We have to come here and enjoy ourselves around the clubhouse, regardless of the situation.â€

The Dodgers did that and more this past weekend, when a celebration of Kershaw — which included nearly team-wide attendance at his Thursday news conference, several on-field ovations Friday, and Kershawâ€s address to Dodger Stadium on Sunday — was accompanied by three wins out of four against the San Francisco Giants.

“Watching him get choked up when he started talking about the teammates — it was just a crazy feeling in that room,†pitcher Tyler Glasnow recounted from Thursdayâ€s announcement.

Added Muncy: “You hear when he talks about the stuff heâ€s gonna miss the most, the stuff that he enjoys the most: Itâ€s being a part of the team. Itâ€s being with the guys. Itâ€s being in the clubhouse.

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“To hear a guy like him just reinforce that, I think itâ€s a good message for a lot of people to hear.â€

In Muncyâ€s estimation, the Dodgers have “seen a reflection of that out on the field†of late, having moved to the verge of a division title (their magic number entering play Monday was three with a 10-4 record over the last two weeks.

“Thereâ€s been more of an effort to try and enjoy the moments,†Muncy said. “Make sure weâ€re still getting our work in, but try to enjoy the moments.â€

The Dodgers made a similar transformation last October, when they used their first-round bye week to build the kind of cohesion they had lacked in previous postseason failures — one the team credited constantly in its eventual run to the World Series.

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Kershaw’s retirement mightâ€ve provided a similar spark, highlighting the significance of such intangible dynamics while lifting the gloom that had clouded the team’s last two months.

“There’s obviously been a lot of things to point [to this season], as far as adversities, which all teams go through,†Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “But I think that as we’ve gotten to the other side of it … guys have stuck together and they’ve come out of it stronger, which a lot of the times, that’s what adversity does.â€

More adversity, of course, figures to lie ahead.

The Dodgers ended the weekend on a sour note, with Blake Treinen suffering the latest bullpen implosion in a 3-1 loss on Sunday. Theyâ€ll still enter the playoffs in a somewhat unsettled place, needing to navigate around a struggling relief corps and overcome a hand injury to catcher Will Smith.

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It means, like last year, their path through October is unlikely to be smooth.

That, after a second half full of frustrations, theyâ€ll have to lean on a culture Kershaw emphasized, and praised, repeatedly over the weekend.

“To have a group of guys in it together, and kind of understanding that and being together, being able to have a ton of fun all the time, is really important,†Kershaw said. “The older Iâ€ve gotten, the more important [Iâ€ve realized] it is. Like, you canâ€t just go through your day every day and go through the emotions. You just canâ€t. Itâ€s too hard, too long to do that.â€

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“You gotta have Miggy doing the mic on the bus. You gotta have Kiké. You gotta have all these guys that are able to keep us having fun and energized every single day. Thatâ€s what this group is, and itâ€s been a blast.â€

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

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