It took about until, oh, Page 7 for me to realize that reading this book was going to be a treat.
"The Last of His Kind" is a biography of baseball standout Clayton Kershaw, and the text opens about Kershaw's preparation for each start on the pitching mound. It's a five-day ritual, more or less. Kershaw probably would be admit to be something of a prisoner of routine in such matters, but he feels that he must go through certain steps along the way in order to be ready for each game. Who can argue? It has worked for him almost all the time, so it is repeated over and over again.
The opening carries plenty of detail, and it reveals much about the subject's personality. Kershaw is a friendly, interesting person during the four days leading up to the start. But once Work Day arrives, he turns grumpy and sullen. He might as well have a sign around his neck saying "Don't Bother Trying to Talk to Me." There are many ways to be great in sports, and this is the method that Kershaw has used.
I sometimes wonder if biographies about current athletes work, mostly because their story is unfinished. But that issue doesn't come up in this book by Andy McCullough, who writes for The Athletic. There's plenty to talk about here, thanks to what went into it. Not only did McCullough talk to a ridiculous number of people - 215 - he also had the full cooperation of Kershaw himself and his family. That allows the book to author present a full portrait.
Kershaw's story is strong enough to carry the reader through his entire life, including childhood. You'd have to stay he started things as a long shot, since his parents separated and divorced before he reached teenager status. With Dad out of the picture and Mom trying to scrape up enough money to keep the family fed and housed, Clayton learned to realize on himself if he wanted to get somewhere.
It turned out he was good at athletics - can you believe he was actually a center on the high school football team for a while? - but baseball was his strong point. Kershaw received some coaching near the end of his prep days, and some tweaks in mechanics helped turn him into a top prospect. The Dodgers were thrilled to see him available at No. 7 in the amateur draft; Andrew Miller, by the way, went No. 6. Most importantly, the bonus check helped wipe out all of his mother's existing debts and then some.
Kershaw's rise in the Dodger system was swift. He signed at age 18, and two years later in 2008 he was starting for Los Angeles. Clayton arrived for good in 2009, and improved for a couple of years until he reached stardom levels in 2011. How does 21-5, 2.28 ERA sound for statistics? It sounds like a Cy Young Award winner, and he was. Kershaw stayed among the game's best throughout the 2010s, winning two more Cys and a Most Valuable Player trophy along the way.
But no matter how hard Kershaw worked in his five-day routine, he couldn't single-handedly raise the Dodgers into World Series champs. Baseball fans in the East didn't have that many chances to see him pitch in those years, unless they stayed up late. When Kershaw did have the nation watching him in that era, for example in playoff games, things had a habit of going wrong. It was frustrating for everyone connected with Kershaw, even if he wasn't at fault strictly speaking much of the team. His career record in the postseason entering 2025 is 13-13 with a 4.49 ERA.
Happily all concerned, the breaks changed in 2020. That was the year of the pandemic, of course, when games were played in mostly empty stadiums. The Dodgers won their first world title in more than three decades, and Kershaw went 2-0/2.31 in the World Series. No one could say he wasn't a winner after that. Clayton has been quite good since then, although injuries limited him to only seven games in 2024. He had to sit and watch his teammates win another title. We'll see what happens next, even if most of his baseball story is written.
What's more, Kershaw has a house full of kids (four) these days, and he apparently discovered what he was missing in terms of stability in his childhood. Kershaw has doted on the kids whenever possible, making special arrangements to spend quality time with them. Maybe the transition to retirement from the game will be easier than this driven athlete ever thought it might be.
McCullough found plenty of great stories about Kershaw and the Dodgers along the way. We learn about what drives a future Hall of Famer like this. As McCullough writes in the prologue, "He understood that he could never stay satisfied. But he could also never lose what made him special."
It's rare that a sports biography about someone who is still play can grab the reader immediately and hold on to him through the acknowledgements. "The Last of His Kind" does exactly that. Buy it now, thank me later.
Five stars
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