I like Clayton Kershaw. Dare I’d say, I’m a fan of Clayton Kershaw. He holds a little bit of history for me as a baseball fan; in 2008, when I really embarked on going gung-ho about visiting ballparks, and my friend and I hit up Southern California to hit up the Dodgers, Angels and Padres, the first park on the trip was Dodger Stadium.
We had little idea of what to really expect, since neither of us were Dodgers or Cardinals fans. We knew we’d see Albert Pujols, and I knew that I wasn’t going to see the Dodgers iteration of Andruw Jones, because he was already out on the disabled list. We didn’t even know who was starting for either team, so on my Samsung A920 flip phone, I looked up to see Todd Wellemeyer for the Cards, versus some guy we’d never heard of named Clayton Kershaw. Who?
Another cursory glance showed this Kershaw kid from the minor leagues who had like a 9.7 strikeouts-per-nine rate (which is extremely good) who was making his Major League debut. Pretty cool, we thought, getting to see some hotshot prospect’s debut.
And he didn’t disappoint, either, as this Clayton Kershaw guy went six innings and struck out seven. He didn’t get a decision, but the Dodgers went onto win the game in extra innings. But we knew we had just seen the start of potentially a really good pitcher’s career.
Fast forward ten years, and Clayton Kershaw is basically the best pitcher of this era. He’s already won three Cy Young Awards, a National League MVP award, and numerous other major baseball awards. He’s thrown a no-hitter and also won the Roberto Clemente Award, which is an award for being a good human being. And he doesn’t seem to show any indication of slowing down either, as he’s among the league leaders in wins, strikeouts and innings pitched* still.
*stats that the saber-snobs don’t care about, but still they’re relevant
Needless to say, there’s a little bit of a positive footnote in my baseball fandom at being able to say that I lucked into getting to see his Major League debut ten years ago. Sucks to have been the guy on eBay that sold me those tickets that he missed out on the start of the best pitcher of the times.
Anyway, as if I needed any more reason to like Clayton Kershaw, there’s this story that emerged this Father’s Day involving him, some commemorative baseballs, and a notoriously unpopular attention-whoring ball hawk whom I will not mention by name because I’d wager money he’s sociopathic and narcissistic enough to have a Google alert for his name and will eventually see this and try to passively-aggressively lump me in as a ‘hater’ on his insufferable Twitter account.
Long story short, the mid-thirties ball hawk immersed himself amongst single-digit-aged children seeking autographs, along the baseline prior to the start of a Reds-Dodgers game, and begged Clayton Kershaw for a commemorative baseball. Sadly, he’s notorious enough to where Kershaw recognized who he was, and said to him no:
And when he pressed on, Kershaw proceeded to shut him down and flatly refuse:
At this point, one might want to shake it off and move on, not to mention maybe not share such a story on social media, but our very special ball hawk doesn’t really operate in reality to a degree and proceeds to stick his foot in his mouth, by comparing useless baseballs to useable currency:
It should be mentioned that even prior to begging for a commemorative baseball, the Twitter time stamps of the insufferable ball hawk show that he already had one before he got in touch with Kershaw. Not sure if he realized that the fact-checking nature of The Internet would reveal that, or if he’s some next-level meta troll who firmly believes that feigning controversy is the best way to keep a rage burning.
Either way, I just love the notion that the best pitcher in baseball absolutely shut down the most insufferable baseball fan on the planet. I was a fan of Clayton Kershaw even before he had his run-in with the ball hawk, but this story just makes me like him even more.
And good job on the ball hawk who somehow manages to find a way to get himself some degree of notoriety or a viral story about himself at least once a season. Even if everyone fucking hates him and wishes he were banned from every baseball park in the country, at least once a year, he can take solace in being in the news just about every baseball season.
