ATLANTA — Clayton Kershaw has skipped vacations and injury rehab to be at past All-Star Games, but when he found out he made this year’s roster, he initially didn’t want to come.
On Sunday, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts gathered his team to announce who had made the National League All-Star team: catcher Will Smith, first baseman Freddie Freeman, and DH Shohei Ohtani, as fan selections; righty Yoshinobu Yamamoto, as a league selection; and Kershaw, whom the commissioner chose as his “Legend Pick.” While his teammates cheered, Kershaw, 37, scoffed. “What is this?” he asked. “A senior citizen’s discount?”
He considered declining the invitation—his 11th, the most in franchise history, but his first that has not come amid an exemplary season.
No, Roberts insisted. It’s actually one of the highest honors you can receive, because it comes amid an exemplary career. Kershaw’s 2.52 career ERA is best in the live-ball era for a pitcher with at least 1,500 innings. He has won three Cy Young Awards, an MVP Award and two World Series. He notched his 3,000th career strikeout last week, making him only the 20th pitcher to hit that mark. (And for what it’s worth, in 50 ⅔ innings this season, he has an ERA+ of 121—21% above league average.)
Kershaw remained skeptical. “It’s uncomfortable,” he says now. “I want the All-Star Game to mean something. I want it to be: If you deserve to be here, you should be here. The way that I got to be here is probably not how I would want to make a team.” And he dislikes the terminology: Legend is “a weird word,” he says. “It’s a little embarrassing. But whatever they have to call it, I’m excited to be here.”
Freeman laughs. “He is a legend,” he says. “He’s one of the greatest lefthanded pitchers of all time. I saw his numbers on the board earlier—216 wins, two-five ERA. Yes, he deserves to be here.”
In the end, it was Kershaw’s wife, Ellen, who persuaded him. She was not interested in litigating who deserved to be where. She canceled the family’s planned trip to Colorado. “You’re going to have a lot of summers to do whatever you want,” she told him. “If you get invited to an All-Star Game, it could be your last one.”
Roberts loves that attitude. “In this day and age where players are opting out, he’s still living in a world where you never know when it could happen again, and [you should] relish every opportunity and be grateful,” he says.
Kershaw says, “I think my wife’s the best at that of anybody, especially if I don’t want to do something. And she’s right, because stuff like this, having my kids come and watch, that’s special.”
Indeed, that was ultimately the deciding factor. Kershaw likes being around the other All-Stars, he says, although he says he can’t point to anything he has learned from them. He likes the chance to face some of the game’s best—a chance Roberts, who is managing the NL squad, says he plans to afford his pitcher on Tuesday for an inning. But “at the end of the day,” Kershaw says, “All-Star Games are for your family.”
So at Monday’s autograph session, he had 8-year-old Charley hand him baseballs to sign, and at the Home Run Derby that night, he clutched 3-year-old Chance, watched as 10-year-old Cali hung out with teammates’ children and facilitated autographs for 5-year-old Cooper. Kershaw was beaming the whole time.
In many ways, this year will not compare to his first All-Star Game, in 2011, or the one he started at Dodger Stadium, in ’22, or even the one he attended despite injury in ’16. But in some ways it will be better: His kids will likely remember it. So on the whole, he’s glad he listened to Ellen.
He grins and says, “That’s usually the case.”
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Clayton Kershaw Begrudgingly Relishes ‘Legend Pick’ All-Star Nod.
