The Last of His Kind: Clayton Kershaw and the Burden of Greatness - Paperback

by Andy McCullough (Author)

This definitive biography of Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw examines 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. Now in paperback with a new Epilogue.

More than any baseball player of his generation, Clayton Kershaw has embodied the rewards and burdens of athletic greatness. 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, 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, and with his willingness to shoulder the blame when he failed. He further impressed them when he returned, year after year, even as his body broke down from the strain of his profession. When the Dodgers finally won a title in 2020, and again in 2024, the television cameras inevitably found Kershaw 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. The book also charts Kershaw's place in the churn of baseball history as his own stubbornness butted against the game's evolution. The narrative of baseball in the 21st century can be told through Kershaw's career--to understand how baseball is played today, and how it got that way, you must understand the journey of Clayton Kershaw.

Author Biography

Andy McCullough is a senior writer at The Athletic. He has covered Major League Baseball since 2010, previously for the Los Angeles Times, the Kansas City Star, and The Star-Ledger in Newark, N.J. His work has been honored by the Associated Press Sports Editors on seven occasions for beat writing, explanatory reporting, and feature writing. He lives in New York with his wife, the writer Stephanie Apstein. This is his first book.