LOS ANGELES — Andrew Friedman has said his goal is to make this the “Golden Era of Dodger baseball.”
It already might be – and Clayton Kershaw is the face of that era.
“I mean, he’s part of the greatest, almost the greatest, run of Dodger history. You’ve got to go back to the ’50s, the ’60s,” first baseman Freddie Freeman said. “The run of success the Dodgers have had since 2012, when it started to really, really get going around here, he’s been a part of every single thing.
“Eighteen years is a lot. A lot of bullets he’s thrown in that left arm. He’s gone through everything. He’s come back from everything. It seems like every other year the last five years – he’s had either the elbow after ’21 was a little barking, his shoulder, or then it’s his toe and his knees. And he just keeps coming back and finding a way. And what’s so incredible to me is that we needed him so bad this year, and he delivered each time. Every fifth, sixth day that we needed him (with other starting pitchers injured), he just kept doing it over and over again.
“Eighteen years. He’s just a special player. There are ‘one of ones’ and we’ve got a couple of them on this team right now. But Clayton is definitely one of one.”
Kershaw announced Thursday that 18 years would be the end of it. He will retire after this season.
“When it comes to him, the story I’ve always told is that he’s always set the example,” third baseman Max Muncy said “Everyone’s known for the past 10 years that he’s gonna be a Hall of Famer. But there’s no one in this clubhouse that has worked harder than he has, there’s no one in this clubhouse who has had more fun than he has, and to me, he’s always set the example.
“He shows up, he gets his work in. He’s gonna work as hard as he possibly can, he’s gonna leave it all out there, and then when it’s all over, he’s gonna have some fun. He’s gonna keep guys light and focused on the game.”
Rookie reliever Jack Dreyer was 9 years old when Kershaw made his major-league debut with the Dodgers in 2008. By the time Dreyer reached high school, Kershaw was winning Cy Young Awards and the younger left-hander looked to him as a template.
“It’s been one of the coolest things that you could imagine,” Dreyer said of becoming Kershaw’s teammate this year. “Growing up, I would watch him. I had pictures of us side by side for mechanics when I was in high school.
“To say he was someone I looked up to is kind of understatement. So it’s been really special to get to share his last season with him. You can’t really put it into words.”
Mookie Betts was in the American League while Clayton Kershaw was laying the foundation for his Hall of Fame career, winning three Cy Young Awards and an MVP award.
“No shade to him, but I didn’t even know who he was when I was on the other side,” said Betts, who faced Kershaw in the 2018 World Series. “I wasn’t a baseball junkie, so I didn’t really understand the magnitude of who Clayton Kershaw was. And when I got over here, I really didn’t understand it until (I saw) the fans and the love and whatnot. As I kept playing with him, you start to understand who he is and what he means to everybody on the West Coast.”
‘Kershaw Day’ became a red-letter day for Dodger fans each time he took the mound. But it was all the other days that made Kershaw’s impact on the Dodgers even greater, Muncy said.
“The culture in this clubhouse has been created over a long period of time, but in reality, it starts with him,” said Muncy, the longest-tenured teammate on the current roster (Kiké Hernandez left and spent three seasons with the Boston Red Sox before returning). “For as long as I’ve known, he’s been the unspoken leader. You’re gonna show up, you’re gonna work as hard as you can, nothing is gonna hold you back, you’re gonna celebrate all the good moments.
“When you have a guy of that caliber who puts in that kind of work, it really sets the tone for the whole team.”
That team would now like to send Kershaw into retirement with a third World Series title, Dreyer said.
“I think that all of us just want to do whatever we can to allow him to go out on the highest note possible. I think it can be a good rally cry,” the rookie said.
Veterans Muncy and Freeman, however, said the team doesn’t need any extra motivation – and Kershaw wouldn’t approve.
“I don’t even think Clayton would want that. That’s just not who he is,” Freeman said. “I was thoroughly surprised he actually announced it. But I mean, if we need a little extra motivation, I guess we could use Clayton as some extra motivation.
“We just want to win it again. But now that it’s a first-ballot Hall of Famer’s last year and he announced it, let’s try and do it for him.”
Betts said he feels “blessed” to have spent six seasons on the same side as Kershaw.
“For me, I mean, the teammate he is, the competitor he is. Not just on the mound, but really everything. The person he is. I’ll always remember that, and I’ll always be able to say Clayton Kershaw is someone that I love,” Betts said. “That’s someone I’ll always go out of my way to make sure I do right by him. I just appreciate everything that he’s meant to the game, meant to the Dodgers and meant to myself, for sure.”
Left-hander Blake Snell, himself a two-time Cy Young Award winner, summed it up in two words.
“The GOAT,” Snell said. “I mean, The GOAT.”
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