Latest / The Favorites Sports Betting Podcast / MLB Scandals & The Aura of Clayton Kershaw with Andy McCullough

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MLB Scandals & The Aura of Clayton Kershaw with Andy McCullough · The Favorites Sports Betting Podcast

0:08
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Favorites, the podcast presented.
0:11
Speaker 2: By About three six five. We are part of the
0:13
Speaker 2: Action Network.
0:14
Speaker 1: I am Chad Milman, Chief Content Officer of the Action Network.
0:18
Speaker 1: Another great episode with my co host, my companion Mike
0:24
Speaker 1: and padre my BFF professional better Simon Hunter l OsO.
0:29
Speaker 3: I'm in, how are we doing, Chad.
0:32
Speaker 1: Brother like it's June and as soon as June hit
0:38
Speaker 1: and the calendar turned, the baseball betting scandals exploded. I
0:47
Speaker 1: think there's some symmetry here. Earlier in the season, when
0:51
Speaker 1: the Shohei Otani and Ipe his translator scandal broke, we
0:58
Speaker 1: had on Keith O'Briant talking about his biography of Charlie Hussel.
1:03
Speaker 1: We are privileged to have another author talking about another
1:09
Speaker 1: baseball legend, and this author also happens to have been
1:13
Speaker 1: covering Major League Baseball for quite a while.
1:17
Speaker 2: So we're going to.
1:17
Speaker 1: Dig into the latest scandals that are breaking as well
1:23
Speaker 1: as his book. The Dodgers are in first place in
1:27
Speaker 1: the NLS. They are actually doing it without Clayton Kershaw,
1:32
Speaker 1: who will make his return from shoulder surgery in the
1:35
Speaker 1: coming weeks. Joining us to discuss the baseball season, the
1:40
Speaker 1: recent scandals three time Cy Young Award winner, Surefire Hall
1:45
Speaker 1: of Famer Clayton Kershaw is Andy McCullough, Senior writer for
1:49
Speaker 1: The Athletic, author of the new biography The Last of
1:51
Speaker 1: His Kind Clayton Kershaw and The Burden of Greatness. Andy,
1:56
Speaker 1: Welcome to the show Man. You have chosen a week
2:00
Speaker 1: needs to come on a betting podcast.
2:03
Speaker 4: Yes, yeah, I will not be offering any parlays or
2:07
Speaker 4: anything besides just a piece of advice to anyone who's
2:10
Speaker 4: playing professional baseball. Don't bet on baseball rule twenty one.
2:17
Speaker 4: Just don't don't do it.
2:18
Speaker 3: It's bad.
2:19
Speaker 1: You think that maybe they would have picked up on
2:22
Speaker 1: that by now, And I do want to get into
2:24
Speaker 1: it like it's a serious topic and I know I
2:27
Speaker 1: have opinions on it. I'm sure Simon has opinions on it.
2:29
Speaker 1: I know you'll have opinions on it. As a reminder,
2:32
Speaker 1: the Favorite podcast is presented by Bet three six five.
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3:09
Speaker 2: Terms.
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Speaker 1: Condition and restrictions apply and reminder catch every episode of
3:13
Speaker 1: the Favorites on YouTube but live. For those enjoying on YouTube,
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Speaker 1: don't forget to give us a like and subscribe to
3:20
Speaker 1: the Action Network YouTube page.
3:22
Speaker 2: All right, we say it as a.
3:23
Speaker 1: Joke, Andy, and like, we're a betting podcast. So Simon,
3:30
Speaker 1: who's a professional better and myself has been in the
3:32
Speaker 1: sports betting media business for a generation. I'm gonna have
3:36
Speaker 1: strong opinions about this. I would like your take, as
3:42
Speaker 1: a veteran sports writer who has been covering baseball at
3:45
Speaker 1: very high levels for a long time, how complicit is
3:50
Speaker 1: the legalization of betting In the recent spate of betting
3:58
Speaker 1: scandals in sports, specifically in baseball.
4:01
Speaker 4: Sure, I mean I think like when when you yeah,
4:04
Speaker 4: I mean I think there's no other way to there's
4:07
Speaker 4: no way to deny it. Right. The proliferation and access
4:10
Speaker 4: to sports betting makes it so much easier for players
4:13
Speaker 4: to do this. You know, like a generation ago, you
4:17
Speaker 4: had to know someone who could get a bet down
4:20
Speaker 4: for you. You know, you had to either or be
4:22
Speaker 4: in a place, you know, physical location where you can
4:25
Speaker 4: get a bet down, And now you can just do
4:26
Speaker 4: it on your phone if you're in the majority of states,
4:30
Speaker 4: and so the access to betting obviously makes it, you know,
4:35
Speaker 4: more likely to happen. I think the you know, the
4:39
Speaker 4: wash of sort of ads and partnerships at the various leagues,
4:44
Speaker 4: including Major League Baseball, taken on with betting companies. Yeah,
4:46
Speaker 4: that also makes it more ubiquitous. At the same time,
4:50
Speaker 4: like it's kind of cut and dried in baseball, like
4:54
Speaker 4: it's the one thing you can't do. It's hammered into
4:58
Speaker 4: every player at the you know, the start of every
5:02
Speaker 4: spring in you know, both English and in Spanish, in
5:06
Speaker 4: meetings you know from the league where they explained how
5:08
Speaker 4: what rule twenty one is it's a rule designed to
5:12
Speaker 4: protect the integrity of the sport. And so yeah, I
5:16
Speaker 4: mean a lot of the early discourse has been just
5:19
Speaker 4: about how small some of these sums were, right, like
5:21
Speaker 4: guys betting handfuls of dollars and like clearly not you know,
5:26
Speaker 4: clearly just like bored, it seems like, and just firing
5:29
Speaker 4: you know, on the on their website, you know, on
5:31
Speaker 4: the sites, just to kill some time. And so the
5:35
Speaker 4: the like the danger of it seems limited. At the
5:39
Speaker 4: same time, it's like the rules pretty cut and dry.
5:42
Speaker 4: There's not a lot of ambiguity to it. You can't
5:45
Speaker 4: bet on baseball if you want to play or work
5:48
Speaker 4: in baseball, you just can't do it. It's part of
5:50
Speaker 4: the privilege of being part of the league. So while
5:55
Speaker 4: I think, you know, you could say, does the league
5:57
Speaker 4: have some responsibility in this, like sure, yeah, but they're
6:00
Speaker 4: also not going to turn down money. That's you know,
6:03
Speaker 4: not how their business is set up. And you would
6:06
Speaker 4: think that the players involved would have to take some
6:09
Speaker 4: personal responsibility, even if it was for you know, like
6:12
Speaker 4: very small lapses. It's a you know, it's kind of
6:14
Speaker 4: a The reason it's such like a red line is
6:17
Speaker 4: because it you know, you don't want the integrity of
6:21
Speaker 4: the game to be at risk. If the integrity of
6:23
Speaker 4: the game is at risk, the entire enterprise can collapse. Right. Like,
6:26
Speaker 4: the whole point is that it's an honest competition, right,
6:29
Speaker 4: and then we watch it because it's you know, we
6:31
Speaker 4: get entertainment. The entertainment is derived from its honesty. If
6:34
Speaker 4: it's if there's a belief that it might be rigged
6:37
Speaker 4: or that the players have financial motivation to you know,
6:40
Speaker 4: do something other than try their best, the whole thing collapses.
6:43
Speaker 4: So yeah, I mean that's kind of where I'm at
6:46
Speaker 4: with it. Like, I think that the way that, like
6:51
Speaker 4: the way that the sports have sort of partnered up
6:55
Speaker 4: with casinos and you know, betting operations, like it does
6:59
Speaker 4: lead to you know, a slippery slope as it were.
7:02
Speaker 4: But also, like the players need to have personal responsibility
7:04
Speaker 4: in one of the privileges of being in baseball, as
7:06
Speaker 4: you can't bet on baseball, Simon, what do you guys think?
7:10
Speaker 4: I'm curious?
7:11
Speaker 1: I like Simon, everything Andy says is true. Proliferation of
7:17
Speaker 1: the accessibility to betting makes it easier for everybody to bet.
7:22
Speaker 1: It's also true if you are an athlete and you
7:26
Speaker 1: make a bet, and you make a bet on your
7:29
Speaker 1: own sport, you couldn't be dumber, and you don't deserve
7:35
Speaker 1: to be in the league because the risk reward on
7:39
Speaker 1: your potential as an athlete who's already in a pipeline,
7:42
Speaker 1: whether you were a minor leaguer on the way up.
7:44
Speaker 1: And this could be in the MLB, we saw it
7:46
Speaker 1: with Jontay Porter. In the NBA is going to be
7:51
Speaker 1: so much higher than anything you can make, you know,
7:55
Speaker 1: betting twenty five fifty one hundred dollars a game, but betting.
8:00
Speaker 2: Has been going on forever.
8:02
Speaker 1: This was the whole reason, like it was worth covering
8:06
Speaker 1: because just because it wasn't legal didn't mean it wasn't happening.
8:10
Speaker 2: So why, Simon, is this happening more now?
8:14
Speaker 3: I would say, it's just bringing to light what the
8:17
Speaker 3: sad truth is of a lot of gambling. It's an addiction, Chad,
8:21
Speaker 3: And we can all sit here and say how dumb
8:23
Speaker 3: the guy is, But he had a sickness. That's that's
8:26
Speaker 3: all it could be, right, because you don't think logically,
8:29
Speaker 3: the disease takes over and you're not thinking logically. So
8:32
Speaker 3: I just think it's it's were at the early stations
8:34
Speaker 3: here with the MLB, where right now, there's only one
8:36
Speaker 3: method they can go about it. Right, They're not going
8:38
Speaker 3: to treat it as a disease. They're going to treat
8:39
Speaker 3: it as you're out of the league. We're here, We're
8:42
Speaker 3: not here to help you cure your disease. We're not
8:44
Speaker 3: here to treat you with kid gloves. You're you're out, like,
8:48
Speaker 3: we're not messing around here, because what we're talking about here,
8:51
Speaker 3: it's the integrity of the league. In the NFL, they've
8:53
Speaker 3: gone about a little different right where these guys who
8:56
Speaker 3: they've caught, they might give him a year suspension, right,
8:58
Speaker 3: don't let them back. But they know it's like anything else,
9:03
Speaker 3: you are out, like, we're not going to take these risks.
9:05
Speaker 3: And we luckily never had, you know, we never had
9:08
Speaker 3: the Joe Burrow Patrick Mahomes scandal like we did with Otani.
9:11
Speaker 3: And you know, the tiny thing. They wanted to sweep
9:14
Speaker 3: that under the rug and keep it moving as quickly
9:15
Speaker 3: as they could because they cannot lifetime dan Otani even
9:19
Speaker 3: if you did get proven right, the whole thing is
9:21
Speaker 3: so messy. But I viewed as the MLB is doing
9:25
Speaker 3: their best to try to control something that it's just
9:27
Speaker 3: so new to them, right, they don't know to handle
9:29
Speaker 3: these guys that have these addiction problems and diseases. You know,
9:32
Speaker 3: we if a coach gets caught, chat if an umpire
9:35
Speaker 3: for the first basement coach, if a star player gets
9:37
Speaker 3: caught this year, it's just so much adding on to
9:40
Speaker 3: the MLB right now. So this is a hot topic
9:43
Speaker 3: that they wanted to keep it. They wanted it to
9:44
Speaker 3: go away, and these these things keep popping up, Chad.
9:48
Speaker 3: So it's not going to go away for the MLB. Right,
9:50
Speaker 3: It's like clear there's an issue right now, and it's
9:52
Speaker 3: tough where it's like, I mean, how many people are
9:55
Speaker 3: within these teams, right, you have the minor league, All
9:57
Speaker 3: these guys are all connected to these teams. It's just
10:00
Speaker 3: such a huge amount of people to pull end. Yeah,
10:03
Speaker 3: like I said from the top, it's an addiction. That's
10:06
Speaker 3: the sad, the sad truth of it. So these guys,
10:08
Speaker 3: I wish I could say they be like they're such idiots,
10:10
Speaker 3: but it's like they clearly just aren't thinking, like the
10:13
Speaker 3: addiction takes over and they're just not processed. Because you're right, Chad,
10:16
Speaker 3: if you want your girlfriend and make bets for you.
10:18
Speaker 3: They're going to catch you somehow through your girlfriend. You're
10:20
Speaker 3: not smarter than these sportsbooks people, Like, That's what I
10:24
Speaker 3: can't get through my head chat. It's just these people
10:26
Speaker 3: think they're so smart. It's like, you're not smarter than
10:29
Speaker 3: a billion dollar business. It's just come on. You might
10:32
Speaker 3: get away with it for a little bit, but eventually
10:33
Speaker 3: they'll get you, right, Guys.
10:35
Speaker 4: If anyone I do want to say, just like, well, Simon,
10:38
Speaker 4: I'm definitely sympathetic to the idea that it's an addiction,
10:41
Speaker 4: right and especially clearly like in the epim is Ahura case,
10:44
Speaker 4: like that is a person who was dealing with gambling addiction.
10:46
Speaker 4: I think is the charming document. Yeah, like there's no
10:49
Speaker 4: there's no like debating that. At the same time, like
10:55
Speaker 4: you can torch your money on college basketball, you know,
10:58
Speaker 4: like you can bet Europe in soccer, like you can.
11:01
Speaker 4: That's what I go back to.
11:02
Speaker 3: It's a disease because he thinks he knows. Jeff Passion
11:04
Speaker 3: put a tweet out he only won four point five
11:07
Speaker 3: percent of his bets. Well, we're talking about we're talking
11:10
Speaker 3: about impossible, right, That's that's Tikipedia Marcana who was betting.
11:14
Speaker 4: On baseball, right, and like, yeah, that is tough. Yeah,
11:16
Speaker 4: those are two separate thing because Msahara, like there's no
11:19
Speaker 4: evidence that he bet on baseball. He was he was
11:21
Speaker 4: like firing on college scire like all sorts of stuff, right.
11:25
Speaker 4: But the reason that these suspensions came down today, it's
11:27
Speaker 4: because there's specific guys within baseball who were betting on baseball.
11:31
Speaker 4: And yeah, four percent, that is tough, like that you
11:35
Speaker 4: have to try it almost, I'm telling you it's almost impossible. Yeah,
11:39
Speaker 4: but I think that was like on parlays too, which
11:41
Speaker 4: is like, you know, that's just giving your money. So yeah,
11:45
Speaker 4: I don't know. I mean, I think these cases are different, right,
11:48
Speaker 4: The Marcano case is different than you know, like Jay
11:50
Speaker 4: Groom or Andrew saw Frank who were you know doing that.
11:54
Speaker 4: I just think I am sympathetic to the idea of
11:57
Speaker 4: someone who's dealing with the throes of addiction. I I
12:00
Speaker 4: do think though, that like it is an addiction that
12:03
Speaker 4: can be channeled into other avenues like gests. I don't know,
12:08
Speaker 4: maybe that's not sympathetic enough.
12:09
Speaker 3: In twenty thirty years, I think will be better. I
12:11
Speaker 3: think right now it's too early in American culture, like
12:14
Speaker 3: in Europe, there's scandals every now and then, but nothing
12:17
Speaker 3: like this, right. I mean literally, we've had a year
12:19
Speaker 3: where every sport has something popping up. It's just we're
12:23
Speaker 3: in We're the guinea pigs right now. It's the sad truth.
12:25
Speaker 3: But like you just talked about it, the accessibility, it
12:28
Speaker 3: is what it is, right, It's a sad times right
12:30
Speaker 3: now for that kind of stuff.
12:32
Speaker 1: Look a, I think anyone who listens to this podcast
12:36
Speaker 1: would not be surprised that Simon was offering the most
12:41
Speaker 1: empathetic view of the situation. And I also think you're
12:46
Speaker 1: one hundred percent right Simon. Everybody in this industry right now,
12:52
Speaker 1: for me to you, to the Action Network, to the operators,
12:58
Speaker 1: to the leagues are going to be on the defensive
13:01
Speaker 1: when stuff like this happens. Yep, because we have all
13:05
Speaker 1: been advocates for the industry for a long time. We
13:09
Speaker 1: all believe that the industry should be legal. We all
13:11
Speaker 1: believe that there should be a clean, well lighted This
13:15
Speaker 1: is the benefit of it being legal though, right Yeah,
13:17
Speaker 1: we keep talking about this.
13:18
Speaker 3: This is why it's great that it's legal, because we.
13:19
Speaker 1: Can't This is why it's great that it's legal, right,
13:22
Speaker 1: Like the integrity operation is so much.
13:25
Speaker 3: Greater, it's so much stafer.
13:27
Speaker 2: It could have been happening and we didn't know it
13:29
Speaker 2: and it was.
13:30
Speaker 3: That's why I try. I tell people. They just don't
13:31
Speaker 3: get it.
13:33
Speaker 1: And people like Andy like it'd be impossible to track
13:36
Speaker 1: down and so you need you need to see you know,
13:40
Speaker 1: back in the day in ninety eight, you know, the
13:44
Speaker 1: steroids era with Mark maguire started because a very observant
13:49
Speaker 1: reporter saw a bottle of Andrew Andrew Stein di owne
13:53
Speaker 1: in his locker for me to see betting slips in
13:55
Speaker 1: someone's locker in order to understand how to break this
13:58
Speaker 1: kind of story. Now, because of the tracking, it is
14:02
Speaker 1: more effective, but it is still putting everybody on the defensive.
14:06
Speaker 2: Andy, I know you want to jump in.
14:07
Speaker 4: No, No, I was just the point about the steroid
14:10
Speaker 4: eras is is really good because I think that the
14:13
Speaker 4: there's like a generation of baseball writers, you know, through
14:15
Speaker 4: the nineties and two thousands who like took a lot
14:17
Speaker 4: of criticism for sort of like sweeping it under the rug.
14:20
Speaker 4: And if you talk to people from that generation, they're like,
14:23
Speaker 4: we went up to the players and ask them are
14:26
Speaker 4: you on steroids? And when they said no, you can't
14:30
Speaker 4: just put in the newspaper that the guy's on steroids,
14:32
Speaker 4: like you need proof, right like, and it needed to
14:35
Speaker 4: go through like the you know, the Balco hearings and
14:38
Speaker 4: you know, the testing error to come in. But you
14:39
Speaker 4: couldn't just accuse people of things. And so you know,
14:43
Speaker 4: there is like the legalization at the very least, it
14:46
Speaker 4: does provide a level of transparency for these things that
14:49
Speaker 4: you know, if people are using these apps or working
14:52
Speaker 4: through these major providers, right like, there's a way to
14:55
Speaker 4: actually bring it to light rather than just sort of
14:57
Speaker 4: relying on, you know, stuff that you can't essentially you
15:00
Speaker 4: can't print like you know, sort of like anonymous accusations
15:05
Speaker 4: without like documentation backing it up.
15:07
Speaker 1: I guess so you mentioned before the show started you
15:10
Speaker 1: play poker, and like you clearly know the language of
15:14
Speaker 1: betting to put it in betting terms if you had
15:17
Speaker 1: to handicap. Do you think there is eventually a massive
15:24
Speaker 1: betting scandal at MLB or one of the major sports
15:27
Speaker 1: or do you think there are enough guardrails in place
15:30
Speaker 1: and there's enough sort of collective understanding that to fuck
15:41
Speaker 1: this up would be so monumentally horrible for everybody that
15:46
Speaker 1: we will be limited to minor scandals with unknown players.
15:51
Speaker 4: I mean, the best friend of the best player possibly
15:55
Speaker 4: in the history of baseball stole sixteen million dollars from
15:58
Speaker 4: him to fund a game addiction.
16:00
Speaker 3: So, uh, yeah, it's there, right.
16:03
Speaker 4: I don't know, as Tommy Lee Jones says in No
16:06
Speaker 4: Country for old men, like if an A and M mess,
16:07
Speaker 4: it'll do until the mess gets here. Yeah, I mean
16:12
Speaker 4: I think that it is something that how do I
16:17
Speaker 4: how do I phrase this? I think that there was
16:19
Speaker 4: an assumption before Alex So, I'm thirty six and i've
16:24
Speaker 4: and I've been covering baseball for like fifteen years now,
16:27
Speaker 4: and when I got into covering baseball, there was never
16:31
Speaker 4: really discussion about betting, you know, on baseball or betting
16:35
Speaker 4: on things, because it was just such a clear obvious
16:37
Speaker 4: red line and it was also like not a ubiquitous activity.
16:41
Speaker 4: It was just harder to do. You couldn't just pull
16:43
Speaker 4: out your phone and do it. And so there's a
16:46
Speaker 4: possibility that in this past, you know, ten to fifteen years,
16:51
Speaker 4: when it seemed like the problem was sort of you know,
16:53
Speaker 4: kind of nipped in the bud, that maybe it wasn't
16:56
Speaker 4: as present of mind, you know, for the people who
16:59
Speaker 4: are running baseball. And I think at this point there
17:02
Speaker 4: needs to be uh not that they're not that they're
17:05
Speaker 4: not doing this, it's just like it just kind of
17:07
Speaker 4: has to be constant vigilance on it to prevent a scandal.
17:11
Speaker 4: Where so where someone who is like, you know, it's
17:13
Speaker 4: not just the interpreter of the best player, but potentially
17:16
Speaker 4: you know, the best player or an All star, not
17:18
Speaker 4: you know, a minor leaguer who's like kind of bored
17:20
Speaker 4: on the injured list. But when there is actual real
17:24
Speaker 4: risk of the integrity of the game of players who
17:26
Speaker 4: involved in games, there has to be vigilance to prevent
17:28
Speaker 4: it from happening. It just seemed it seemed like outside
17:31
Speaker 4: the realm of likelihood because the punishment was so severe
17:35
Speaker 4: and the upside felt so limited, and so there just
17:39
Speaker 4: kind of needs to be a clear demarcation of like,
17:41
Speaker 4: like I think I think that the penalties that came
17:44
Speaker 4: down today against these you know, five guys, while they
17:46
Speaker 4: seem pretty harsh, there they follow you know, what the
17:49
Speaker 4: CBA has, like what the rulebook has this is you know,
17:52
Speaker 4: the rules are like if you bet on baseball in
17:55
Speaker 4: a game that involves your team, it's a lifetime ban.
17:58
Speaker 4: And if you bet on base and you're not involved,
18:01
Speaker 4: it's a year long ban. And it's like cut and dry.
18:03
Speaker 4: You can bet fifty cents that bye bye. You know
18:06
Speaker 4: that's it. So, you know, while these penalties are pretty harsh, like,
18:11
Speaker 4: it does feel like a reasonable deterrent for people who
18:13
Speaker 4: are at least like not paying attention or don't have
18:16
Speaker 4: their you know, shit together. I guess you could.
18:18
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18:21
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Speaker 1: Brother, my freezer is so loaded with stuff from Omaha Steaks.
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Speaker 1: I had to start giving other food away. I enjoyed
20:00
Speaker 1: all of it. You just said you've been writing for
20:03
Speaker 1: fifteen years covering baseball. You just wrote a big book,
20:07
Speaker 1: The Last of his Kind, Clayton Kershaw, The Burden of Greatness.
20:11
Speaker 1: I think he's the perfect guy to carry a heavy
20:15
Speaker 1: title like that. Do you enjoy covering baseball from this
20:20
Speaker 1: point of view more than digging into and having to
20:25
Speaker 1: chase down scandals like this. Every reporter, every writer is different,
20:29
Speaker 1: like they get into it.
20:30
Speaker 4: For Yeah, I think variety is good. Like I had
20:34
Speaker 4: to I had to do a lot of stuff with
20:36
Speaker 4: the Misahara scandal at the beginning of the year, which
20:38
Speaker 4: was stressful and exciting and kind of a nice change
20:41
Speaker 4: of pace. But yeah, I mean, I think the stuff
20:44
Speaker 4: that interests me the most is like trying to understand,
20:49
Speaker 4: you know, what makes the people tick. For lack of
20:53
Speaker 4: a better term. I know that's not a unique sort
20:55
Speaker 4: of take, but that is kind of what animates me
20:59
Speaker 4: in terms of, you know, like as a writer and reporter,
21:02
Speaker 4: like trying to just understand, like how does a person
21:05
Speaker 4: you know, It's like the Richard Brent Kramer thing about
21:07
Speaker 4: the presidency, like growing up right, like he had never
21:10
Speaker 4: met a person who thought that he could be president,
21:12
Speaker 4: so like what does it take to be you know,
21:15
Speaker 4: that type of person? And in Major League Baseball, like
21:18
Speaker 4: I am basically interacting the overwhelming majority of the time
21:21
Speaker 4: with like no people who I just have that didn't
21:24
Speaker 4: these weren't my friends growing up, you know, like these
21:26
Speaker 4: were and by the way, I was a jock like
21:28
Speaker 4: I was on the football team like three years varsity,
21:30
Speaker 4: no big deal, but like you know, there was not
21:33
Speaker 4: people like you know who anyway. So all this is
21:38
Speaker 4: to say is, like I have what what interests me
21:42
Speaker 4: about Kershaw is just trying to explain, you know, how
21:45
Speaker 4: does a person become like this where they sort of,
21:48
Speaker 4: you know, treat each day with like metronomic precision. You know,
21:51
Speaker 4: how do you come to be in this place where
21:54
Speaker 4: despite all that you've achieved in baseball, you know, and
21:58
Speaker 4: in your life, you still hold yourself to such exceedingly
22:01
Speaker 4: high standards. Like what is the root of that sort
22:03
Speaker 4: of you know, personality? And so he was, you know,
22:08
Speaker 4: that's kind of the stuff that I that I like
22:10
Speaker 4: doing the most. Readers don't always respond to it because
22:13
Speaker 4: they like scandals or they like trade rumors and stuff
22:16
Speaker 4: like that, but I think it often has a more
22:18
Speaker 4: lasting impact to be able to do stories of that type.
22:21
Speaker 1: You just casually dropped my number one favorite nonfiction book,
22:29
Speaker 1: Oh Time and Richard ben Kramer, and which is for
22:34
Speaker 1: anyone who hasn't read it, now is a good time
22:36
Speaker 1: to read it because it's this about a thousand page
22:40
Speaker 1: book in which he goes through basically writes a book
22:44
Speaker 1: about the presidential campaigns. Yeah for I think eight different
22:49
Speaker 1: people running for president in nineteen eighty eight, and it
22:54
Speaker 1: captures everything from the beginning of what has become the
22:58
Speaker 1: sensational Sex Scan.
23:00
Speaker 2: With Gary Hurd.
23:02
Speaker 1: Joe Biden is featured prominently obviously George H. W. Bush,
23:07
Speaker 1: Michael Dukakis, like, those are the final two.
23:09
Speaker 2: Guys, brilliant did get part?
23:12
Speaker 1: If you walk away thinking, God, it would have been
23:14
Speaker 1: great if he was president, like like, it's fascinating. It
23:17
Speaker 1: is a fascinating, fascinating book, but we digress. Also a
23:22
Speaker 1: fascinating book, your book about Clayton Kershaw. There are two
23:26
Speaker 1: anecdotes that were in the excerpt in The New York
23:28
Speaker 1: Times that I thought perfectly captured Kershaw. I want you
23:33
Speaker 1: to dig in a little bit deeper on how she
23:36
Speaker 1: manages both of these things. One there was a player
23:39
Speaker 1: who said, there's one player on this team.
23:42
Speaker 2: I would like to date my wife. It's Clayton Kershaw.
23:46
Speaker 1: And then there was an anecdote about Justin Thomas kind
23:49
Speaker 1: of getting really nervous and freaking out that he had
23:52
Speaker 1: accidentally eaten Kershaw's protein bar before one of his pitches
23:57
Speaker 1: and his before one of his games, and his routine
24:01
Speaker 1: and temperament is so specific on game day versus what
24:04
Speaker 1: it is any other time. Explain sort of what those
24:09
Speaker 1: two details unpack about.
24:12
Speaker 4: Sure, yeah, that was a quote from from Dan Herron,
24:15
Speaker 4: who used to play for the Dodgers now is he
24:19
Speaker 4: played for a long time in baseball, and so yeah,
24:21
Speaker 4: he had the quote was He's the only guy I
24:23
Speaker 4: ever played with who I would let date my wife,
24:26
Speaker 4: which I very much enjoyed, which I think explains a
24:30
Speaker 4: decent amount about Kershaw, but also a decent amount about
24:32
Speaker 4: the sort of average baseball player's opinion of his teammates.
24:36
Speaker 3: I sent just how trustworthy they are.
24:40
Speaker 4: So yeah, that's something that you know, I've known Dan
24:44
Speaker 4: for a while and he had said that, like as
24:46
Speaker 4: a joke one time when we were at dinner, and
24:51
Speaker 4: subsequently I was like formally interviewing him for the book
24:54
Speaker 4: and I brought it up and he was like, yeah, no,
24:56
Speaker 4: I believe that. I'm like, I'm gonna put that in
24:58
Speaker 4: the book. He was like, you're gonna put that in
24:59
Speaker 4: a book and I was like, yes, that's what this
25:02
Speaker 4: you know. He was like, all right, man, yeah, you know,
25:05
Speaker 4: Dan's kind of a he pretends to be sort of
25:07
Speaker 4: a hang dog sort but he's very sharp and so
25:10
Speaker 4: but yeah, that was I was glad to get that
25:12
Speaker 4: in there. And then yeah, Justin Turner was telling me
25:15
Speaker 4: a story about how Kershaw has this like he has
25:17
Speaker 4: a very like meticulous routine and as part of it,
25:23
Speaker 4: like everything has to be done by you know, at
25:25
Speaker 4: the minute. So like at at five fifty eight, he's
25:29
Speaker 4: getting you know, his like sort of heating ointment on
25:32
Speaker 4: at a certain time, and like at you know, two
25:34
Speaker 4: minutes later, he's like chugging a thing of red Bull,
25:37
Speaker 4: and then like a minute after that he's eating a
25:38
Speaker 4: protein bar. And so it's incumbent upon the people specifically
25:42
Speaker 4: in the training room. Also often the massage therapist Possum
25:47
Speaker 4: Nakajima nam Yosaki Nakajima, if they call him Possum. So
25:51
Speaker 4: like Possum's job was to like have all the elements
25:55
Speaker 4: in place essentially so that when Kershaw gets there, everything
25:57
Speaker 4: is where it's expected to be. And one day Turner
26:01
Speaker 4: came in from a workout, he like hadn't eaten or something,
26:04
Speaker 4: and he just like saw the protein bar on the
26:07
Speaker 4: table and he just grabbed it and started eating, and
26:09
Speaker 4: Possum just blew up at him. He's like, what are
26:11
Speaker 4: you doing, Like that's Kershaw's bar, and like ran out
26:15
Speaker 4: of the room and told Possum to go get another one.
26:17
Speaker 4: Don't tell him it was me. Which you know that
26:22
Speaker 4: first chapter, you know, which the times in the Athletic
26:24
Speaker 4: were nice enough to excerpt. I wanted to, you know,
26:27
Speaker 4: I chose that as the opening because I wanted to
26:30
Speaker 4: really explain how being around Kershaw made his teammates feel
26:36
Speaker 4: on a regular basis, and specifically like how it felt
26:39
Speaker 4: on the day he pitched, because he created and still
26:43
Speaker 4: does to an extent in them this sort of odd
26:46
Speaker 4: blend of like excitement and also apprehension. And baseball was
26:52
Speaker 4: like a very you know, it's like a workaday sport,
26:56
Speaker 4: you know, like sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes
26:59
Speaker 4: it rains, Like there's a lot of games, it's a
27:01
Speaker 4: long season, and it can get really monotonous. But with Kershaw, starts,
27:06
Speaker 4: like the days felt different because of the way he
27:10
Speaker 4: sort of carried himself in the room before the game
27:14
Speaker 4: and the intensity that he had and and sort of
27:16
Speaker 4: his dedication to his routine. And so I wanted to
27:19
Speaker 4: sort of you know, talking to a lot of his
27:20
Speaker 4: teammates basically explain like, so what is it like on
27:23
Speaker 4: that day? And like there's this weird combination of like,
27:26
Speaker 4: you're thrilled because you know, like we have the best
27:29
Speaker 4: pitcher in the world starting tonight, we are probably going
27:31
Speaker 4: to win. It's gonna be a fun day. And also
27:33
Speaker 4: there's just kind of terror of like I really don't
27:35
Speaker 4: want to screw up behind him. I don't want to
27:37
Speaker 4: make an error. I don't want to like not play
27:39
Speaker 4: what you know, not get a hit and you know,
27:41
Speaker 4: not give him run support. I don't want to like
27:44
Speaker 4: accidentally bump into him in the hallway what he's stalking through.
27:47
Speaker 4: And you know, I don't want to do anything to
27:49
Speaker 4: like upset his axis, and so uh trying to and
27:53
Speaker 4: then taking all that and then asking Kershaw, it's like, Okay,
27:57
Speaker 4: what is going through your mind while this has happened?
28:00
Speaker 4: And you know, he was able to sort of open
28:03
Speaker 4: a window into like where all that anxiety and restlessness
28:06
Speaker 4: came from from his childhood, from sort of the way
28:08
Speaker 4: he grew up, And you know, I really thought that
28:10
Speaker 4: was a good way like portal sort of into the
28:13
Speaker 4: book is just combining those two sort of perspectives, that
28:17
Speaker 4: makes sense.
28:18
Speaker 1: He seems a lot like Simon right before we do
28:20
Speaker 1: convince me on Sunday marketings. You don't you don't want
28:24
Speaker 1: to get in the way of Simon before he's doing
28:28
Speaker 1: a show. But it actually is interesting to me, Simon,
28:30
Speaker 1: because Sundays are game days for you. I never get
28:35
Speaker 1: the sense that you are filled with anxiety, dread and
28:38
Speaker 1: need to be sort of a level of intensity that
28:42
Speaker 1: is a win or go home moment, even though you
28:44
Speaker 1: have sixteen seventeen Sundays to win or go home.
28:48
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm just an over preparer, right, I'm one of
28:50
Speaker 3: those people that I work so hard in so many
28:53
Speaker 3: hours because I don't have wipe and kids, Like my
28:56
Speaker 3: life is football that But when the time comes, it's like,
29:00
Speaker 3: even if it doesn't work out, I literally have no excuse.
29:03
Speaker 3: I put all the work and I got possibly put in,
29:04
Speaker 3: so I feel as prepared as I could be. But
29:07
Speaker 3: the Kershaw My favorite part about Kershaw I'm sure he
29:10
Speaker 3: touched about is in the book about how he's the
29:13
Speaker 3: last of these great pitchers, right, these guys that go
29:16
Speaker 3: complete games. Yeah, throw them out there and I send
29:19
Speaker 3: these guys before we came on, like, I'll never forget it.
29:22
Speaker 3: I'm a Phillies fan. I'll never forget that run we had.
29:24
Speaker 3: And they bring in this blonde haired, tan six '
29:28
Speaker 3: six dude to pitch against. It might have been Cole Handlers,
29:31
Speaker 3: or maybe it was the next eight pitch, but he
29:33
Speaker 3: came out. I was like, who's this California kid? Like
29:35
Speaker 3: I had no idea his whole backstory anything like that.
29:38
Speaker 3: And it's crazy to think that that kid who he
29:41
Speaker 3: played pretty well against us, little that I know he
29:43
Speaker 3: was going to become this Hall of Famer. That the
29:45
Speaker 3: fact that he's been in La now for sixteen years,
29:48
Speaker 3: and you go through all the guys they brought in
29:51
Speaker 3: and everyone's like, well, this is the Dodger's next Kershaw,
29:54
Speaker 3: And they kept leaving and going away, and the Kershall
29:56
Speaker 3: just stayed there and either you know, would get the surgery,
29:59
Speaker 3: come back and he'd lose her for a year or two,
30:02
Speaker 3: and then he'd come back and he'd find it again.
30:04
Speaker 3: The fact that you chose him, I just love because
30:06
Speaker 3: it's if you're a baseball fan, you can't talk about
30:10
Speaker 3: this last fifteen sixteen years without his name being up
30:12
Speaker 3: there is you know, arguably the best picture in I mean,
30:16
Speaker 3: Chad wants to get to it. I want to get
30:17
Speaker 3: to it. Did it all slid his by in that
30:20
Speaker 3: twenty twenty World Series?
30:21
Speaker 4: Like?
30:22
Speaker 3: Was that a kind of think he needed to get done?
30:23
Speaker 3: Because I'm I'm a hater. I'll be upfront, brother, I
30:27
Speaker 3: am a Philly fan. I'm a hater. I held that
30:29
Speaker 3: over him all the time. His playoff record and what
30:31
Speaker 3: he did in the playoff that was a real think
30:33
Speaker 3: and you just talked about it, right, This guy is
30:35
Speaker 3: so meticulous. I can't imagine the wars in his head
30:38
Speaker 3: because he obviously heard the noise, right. I mean, I
30:41
Speaker 3: would love for you to dive into what was his
30:43
Speaker 3: on the playoffs and that World series.
30:45
Speaker 1: Yeah.
30:45
Speaker 4: I think it's a really challenging thing for him to
30:48
Speaker 4: sort of analyze because I think it's still very painful.
30:51
Speaker 4: And I think part of like why he's you know,
30:56
Speaker 4: has doesn't want to delve into a much. Part of
30:59
Speaker 4: why you know he said he doesn't want to really
31:00
Speaker 4: read the book is it's like really painful to go
31:02
Speaker 4: back and relive those failures. I think he feels some
31:05
Speaker 4: of them, specifically the twenty seventeen World Series. I think
31:08
Speaker 4: I think he feels that pretty acutely. I guess when
31:11
Speaker 4: he allows himself to and so part of his you know,
31:14
Speaker 4: defense mechanism makes it sound you know, like I don't know,
31:18
Speaker 4: it doesn't it's not exactly conveying it. But I think
31:20
Speaker 4: the way he has sort of like guarded against it
31:22
Speaker 4: is he tries to be as forward thinking as possible
31:25
Speaker 4: and you know, propelling himself through you know, the five
31:29
Speaker 4: day cycle during the season or the rehab cycle now.
31:32
Speaker 4: But yeah, I mean, I think that the way he
31:35
Speaker 4: has pitched in the postseason in his career is something
31:38
Speaker 4: that you know, someone asked me, like was just doing
31:40
Speaker 4: promo for the book. They were like, you know, does
31:42
Speaker 4: it haunt him? And I was like, I mean, he
31:44
Speaker 4: certainly wouldn't use that verb, but to an extent kind
31:48
Speaker 4: of yeah, it's tough, Like it's tough to to feel like.
31:52
Speaker 4: I think the feeling that he has dealt with is
31:54
Speaker 4: that he has let his team down, you know, often
31:57
Speaker 4: in the postseason. And I think if you go through
32:00
Speaker 4: all those years, right, because there was a seven year
32:02
Speaker 4: stretch where he was kind of like the central figure
32:05
Speaker 4: of each postseason, But if you go through those seven seasons.
32:08
Speaker 4: You know, in thirteen and fourteen when he first got
32:10
Speaker 4: there and he was like definitively the best pitcher in sport,
32:13
Speaker 4: there was definitely some stuff where he was probably a
32:16
Speaker 4: little too stubborn. He was a little too predictable in
32:18
Speaker 4: his sequences. You know, he was doing things that the
32:20
Speaker 4: Cardinals specifically could you know, sort of diagnose and take
32:23
Speaker 4: advantage of, you know, and that's kind of where the
32:26
Speaker 4: narrative starts. Twenty fifteen pitched pretty well, you know, twenty
32:31
Speaker 4: the team just lost in the first round, kind of
32:33
Speaker 4: you know, he pitched on short rest to in an
32:36
Speaker 4: elimination game to you know, keep a series alive. They
32:39
Speaker 4: lost the next game and they were out.
32:42
Speaker 3: Explained to people, I don't want to cut you off,
32:43
Speaker 3: but he yeah, okay, he had from two thousand and
32:45
Speaker 3: nine to twenty nineteen, he had a sub three r
32:49
Speaker 3: every year. You can't explain how incredible a ten year stretch.
32:53
Speaker 3: Well in the res season this guy was. And now
32:55
Speaker 3: we're talking about yeah failures. That's why it was such
32:57
Speaker 3: a big deal to fans like me, where it's like,
32:59
Speaker 3: this is the best pitcher maybe ever.
33:02
Speaker 4: Right, I mean, he he is I kind of firmly
33:04
Speaker 4: believe this. He is the best pitcher ever in terms
33:06
Speaker 4: of this singular job of the pitcher, which is run prevention.
33:10
Speaker 4: Like he gives up he does not give up runs
33:12
Speaker 4: like other pitchers are better at getting strikeouts, all that
33:14
Speaker 4: sort of stuff. But like he has the lowest ERA
33:17
Speaker 4: in baseball history two point four eight, or at least
33:19
Speaker 4: in the live ball era two point four eight, he
33:21
Speaker 4: has the lowest ERA plus where it's sort of normalized
33:24
Speaker 4: for all eras, and then his postseason ERA is four
33:27
Speaker 4: point four to nine. You know, it's a significant difference.
33:31
Speaker 4: And part of what the book is about, though, is
33:32
Speaker 4: like why that difference matters? Right, because justin Verlander's postseason
33:37
Speaker 4: ERA is worse than his regular season a RA. It's
33:40
Speaker 4: not as bad, but it's worse, you know, same story
33:43
Speaker 4: for Max Scherz Or why does no one care about that?
33:46
Speaker 4: You know, why does that come up less? And it's
33:48
Speaker 4: because Kershaw established a standard for himself and held himself
33:53
Speaker 4: to it and never ran from responsibility, never you know,
33:56
Speaker 4: asked out of games, you know, took the baseball in
33:58
Speaker 4: short rest, pitched and relief. You know, was willing basically
34:01
Speaker 4: to take on that the risk of failure, and he
34:05
Speaker 4: often did fail, and the book is not meant to
34:08
Speaker 4: is like absolve him or defend any of this or
34:11
Speaker 4: make excuses, and he's not seeking any of that, but
34:14
Speaker 4: I think it is It is interesting as you go
34:16
Speaker 4: through year by year, Like it's not like he would
34:19
Speaker 4: just come out and get his ass kicked, like there was,
34:21
Speaker 4: you know, there was stuff going on. He would pitch great,
34:24
Speaker 4: then he'd be on short rests and he pitched really good,
34:26
Speaker 4: and then he'd be on short rest again and wouldn't
34:28
Speaker 4: pitch is good. You know in the Astros were you know,
34:31
Speaker 4: most likely stealing his signs. In twenty seventeen, there were
34:34
Speaker 4: times where he was pitching in relief when he probably
34:37
Speaker 4: shouldn't have been. And I think, like, you know, part
34:40
Speaker 4: of the idea, like where the burden of greatness you know,
34:42
Speaker 4: gets to is like if you pitch six innings in
34:46
Speaker 4: a regular in a game, just a game, and you
34:48
Speaker 4: give up three runs and you leave the game, you
34:50
Speaker 4: are credited with a quality start, which is like what
34:53
Speaker 4: baseball has sort of decided statistically is like the measure
34:56
Speaker 4: of like, hey, you had a nice day as a
34:58
Speaker 4: starting pitcher and your era is four point four to five,
35:01
Speaker 4: which is worse than Kershaw's postseason era. So that is
35:05
Speaker 4: the standard to which he is judged by just basically
35:08
Speaker 4: being like decent in the postseason, he's an abject failure,
35:12
Speaker 4: and that's a mantle that he's earned, essentially. And so
35:16
Speaker 4: part of the book is just like grappling with what
35:18
Speaker 4: do you do when you put yourself in this sort
35:20
Speaker 4: of position where anything less than you know everything is
35:24
Speaker 4: a failure. I think that's like something that only certain
35:27
Speaker 4: athletes are really good enough to ever be judged by,
35:30
Speaker 4: and I think how they handle that is fascinating.
35:33
Speaker 1: Simon, can you name the fastest growing ticketing app in
35:36
Speaker 1: the United States?
35:37
Speaker 3: Game Time?
35:39
Speaker 1: That's right, It's game Time. I love game Time for
35:41
Speaker 1: two reasons. First, they still sponsor this show. Second, I
35:44
Speaker 1: use game Time all the time. They have amazing last
35:47
Speaker 1: minute deals, including pro in college sports. I'm actually opening
35:51
Speaker 1: the game Time app right now from my house here
35:54
Speaker 1: in Connecticut. Guess what the hottest team in baseball? The
35:57
Speaker 1: New York Yankees. I can get into see them for
36:01
Speaker 1: thirty bucks.
36:03
Speaker 2: No matter where you live. Download the game Time app.
36:06
Speaker 2: Get out have some fun this week. You deserve it.
36:09
Speaker 1: You can redeem code favorites for twenty dollars off your
36:11
Speaker 1: first purchase. Terms apply again. Just download the game Time
36:15
Speaker 1: app and use code favorites for twenty dollars off your
36:18
Speaker 1: first purchase. Last minute tickets loose prices guaranteed. So the
36:23
Speaker 1: guy comes into the league, he's lights out. He's winning
36:29
Speaker 1: what three Cy Young's By the time he's twenty seven,
36:32
Speaker 1: he's basically a Hall of Famer, possibly one of the
36:35
Speaker 1: best pitchers who's ever lived before the Dodgers are really
36:39
Speaker 1: even going on these epic runs where they've won eleven
36:44
Speaker 1: division titles or something like that. You describe in great
36:49
Speaker 1: detail the build up, the level of intensity it takes
36:52
Speaker 1: to get on the mound on the fifth day, And
36:55
Speaker 1: I agree with you a lot of his postseason lack
36:58
Speaker 1: of success is also bad luck, not getting offensive support team,
37:05
Speaker 1: stealing signs, having to go on short rest because they
37:07
Speaker 1: really have no one else to turn to, and then
37:09
Speaker 1: people considering that to be a failure.
37:14
Speaker 2: Did he ever not want to go into the postseason
37:19
Speaker 2: and have to confront that again?
37:21
Speaker 1: Like after I think it was, like, what was it,
37:24
Speaker 1: six straight years of postseason not just lack of success,
37:28
Speaker 1: but white hot spotlight, not getting over the top. Yeah,
37:33
Speaker 1: at some point that's got a way on him, like
37:37
Speaker 1: I don't want to do it again.
37:39
Speaker 4: It's you know, it's an interesting it's a very interesting question.
37:43
Speaker 4: I mean I think that you know, he had this
37:45
Speaker 4: interview after they lost in twenty nineteen against the Nationals
37:50
Speaker 4: where he gave up these two just sort of titanic
37:53
Speaker 4: home runs to Juan Soto and Anthony Rendon. He's pitching
37:56
Speaker 4: in relief in a situation where he probably shouldn't have
37:59
Speaker 4: been pitching in really, if they had a really good bullpen,
38:01
Speaker 4: he should, you know. But anyway, so you just he
38:04
Speaker 4: just looks just like utterly crushed, you know, and he
38:07
Speaker 4: says something to the effect of, you know, everything people
38:10
Speaker 4: say about me in the postseason is true, basically, like
38:14
Speaker 4: everything you know what people say about me is right.
38:16
Speaker 4: I am a failure in the postseason essentially, And then
38:19
Speaker 4: the next thing he said was like, I'm not gonna
38:21
Speaker 4: hang my head. I'm gonna come back. I'm gonna do
38:23
Speaker 4: everything I can to you know, be back here next
38:26
Speaker 4: year and be in the same situation. And next year
38:28
Speaker 4: they ended up winning the World Series, Right, So I
38:32
Speaker 4: don't think that he ever really was willing to you know,
38:36
Speaker 4: to walk away from it or just hope, like it'd
38:38
Speaker 4: be nice if we won seventy five games this year
38:41
Speaker 4: and I didn't have to deal with this crap, you know,
38:43
Speaker 4: but I do. I will say that the year after that,
38:47
Speaker 4: in twenty twenty one, he injured his elbow and he
38:51
Speaker 4: wasn't able to pitch in the postseason, and we had
38:58
Speaker 4: some conversations that really this was kind of what made
39:00
Speaker 4: me interested in, you know, trying to do the book,
39:03
Speaker 4: and and we were just kind of talking. So it's
39:06
Speaker 4: like a little like I don't want to miscontrue, you know,
39:10
Speaker 4: what it was, but we were basically I was just
39:12
Speaker 4: like I was kind of asking him, like, how are
39:13
Speaker 4: you feeling not being able to pitch in this? And
39:17
Speaker 4: he was, you know, describing just like the disappointment of
39:20
Speaker 4: not being able to compete and not being able to
39:22
Speaker 4: help the team and feeling like kind of left out
39:24
Speaker 4: and all that sort of stuff. And I was like,
39:26
Speaker 4: is there any part of you though that's like you
39:29
Speaker 4: wake up and like you don't feel whatever it is
39:32
Speaker 4: you feel when you have to do that. And he
39:34
Speaker 4: was like, oh, yeah, for sure, you know, And and
39:36
Speaker 4: I think that's part of what you know, we get
39:39
Speaker 4: into in that in the first chapter of Just Like,
39:42
Speaker 4: there is a part of him that is very much
39:46
Speaker 4: looking forward to not having to put his body, his mind,
39:50
Speaker 4: his spirit through the real you know, just the stress
39:53
Speaker 4: of having to be Clayton Kershaw on the mound. And
39:57
Speaker 4: at the same time he's not ready for that to
39:59
Speaker 4: be open. And I think he's been grappling with that
40:02
Speaker 4: much more since they won in twenty twenty. I think
40:05
Speaker 4: if they had not won in twenty twenty, he probably
40:07
Speaker 4: wouldn't be as open about that. But having at least
40:11
Speaker 4: the one ring, you know, even in the shortened season,
40:15
Speaker 4: allows there to be, you know, something closer to closure
40:19
Speaker 4: on it, because it's you know, he talks about it
40:22
Speaker 4: pretty openly, like it's hard. It's hard on him physically,
40:24
Speaker 4: it's hard on him mentally, you know, it's hard and
40:26
Speaker 4: him emotionally just to have to do this. It's you know,
40:29
Speaker 4: it's it's not like a fun day at the office
40:31
Speaker 4: when he pitches no.
40:33
Speaker 1: No caveats Andy, no shortened season. A World Series win
40:39
Speaker 1: is a World Series win.
40:40
Speaker 2: I agree with it.
40:41
Speaker 4: By the way they tell you, that's I agree with you.
40:44
Speaker 4: Like they played that stupid season. We might as well.
40:46
Speaker 3: Count it?
40:46
Speaker 2: Why not count?
40:47
Speaker 1: Also, it's not that easy to play in the conditions
40:49
Speaker 1: they played in, Like there's so many challenges. We talk
40:52
Speaker 1: about this with the NBA bubble too, like there were
40:55
Speaker 1: just because it wasn't a full season, the level of
40:57
Speaker 1: challenges that each team confronted to win a title that year,
41:01
Speaker 1: we're tremendous. Before we let you go, there's a great
41:06
Speaker 1: story that sort of to me encapsulates his level of intensity.
41:13
Speaker 1: That involves a very famous name, the most bankable actor
41:19
Speaker 1: in the history of Hollywood.
41:23
Speaker 2: Share that story.
41:24
Speaker 4: Uh yeah, sure, there was. There was a day and
41:29
Speaker 4: I believe it was twenty thirteen where you know, an
41:33
Speaker 4: actor visited the Dodgers' clubhouse. And part of the issue
41:38
Speaker 4: why this was like a regular thing. You know, if
41:40
Speaker 4: you go to Doctors Stadium, like you'll always see sort
41:42
Speaker 4: of famous people there. It's you know, it's la But
41:45
Speaker 4: the actor showed up late, and he showed up a
41:47
Speaker 4: little late, not too late, but he showed up late.
41:49
Speaker 4: And he showed up on the day that Kershaw was pitching.
41:52
Speaker 4: And so he comes into the clubhouse to meet the
41:55
Speaker 4: team before the game, and you know there's some players,
41:58
Speaker 4: you know, around Kershaw's his locker and the players are
42:00
Speaker 4: like super excited and they're you know, they're yelling you
42:05
Speaker 4: catchphrases you know that the the actor had made famous.
42:09
Speaker 4: And they're all like super amped, and Kershaw's just like glowering,
42:12
Speaker 4: you know, he's just like miserable. And he just gets
42:14
Speaker 4: up and you know, he's got his dressed like he
42:17
Speaker 4: looks ridiculous. He's you know, it's the middle of summer.
42:19
Speaker 4: He's wearing this huge like winter jacket that he always wears,
42:23
Speaker 4: you know, before every start. It's like zipped all the
42:24
Speaker 4: way up. He's got a glove and his baseball. The
42:27
Speaker 4: game's not starting for like another hour, and he stomps
42:30
Speaker 4: out of the room, and on the way out, the
42:31
Speaker 4: actor like raises his hand, he's like Clayton my man.
42:34
Speaker 4: It tries to give him a high five, and Kershaw
42:36
Speaker 4: just completely big League Samuel L. Jackson uh and just
42:42
Speaker 4: just just left him totally hanging. And sam Jackson was
42:46
Speaker 4: just like what, Uh So, Yeah, I was told that
42:52
Speaker 4: story a couple of years ago, and I worked very
42:54
Speaker 4: hard to confirm that it was true because I very
42:57
Speaker 4: much wanted it to be in the book. So I
42:59
Speaker 4: had to do I talk to many different people, including Kershaw,
43:02
Speaker 4: who confirmed that that's a true story. It's one of
43:06
Speaker 4: those like when you hear it, you're like, oh, I
43:08
Speaker 4: almost don't want to check because I don't want someone
43:10
Speaker 4: to say this never happened, but thankfully it did. So yeah,
43:13
Speaker 4: I was happy about that.
43:14
Speaker 2: I know that feeling.
43:16
Speaker 4: Yeah, I do.
43:19
Speaker 3: I do.
43:20
Speaker 1: Andy, Great Stuff, Thanks for coming on, Thanks for talking
43:22
Speaker 1: about the book which I want everybody to pick up.
43:26
Speaker 1: The last of his kind, Clayton Kershaw and the Burden
43:29
Speaker 1: of Greatness. Also talking about the betting scandals. Andy McCullough,
43:33
Speaker 1: baseball writer at the Athletic Great Stuff. As reminder, the
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