The Last of His Kind

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.