{"id":44754,"date":"2017-06-20T23:10:52","date_gmt":"2017-06-21T03:10:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=44754"},"modified":"2020-08-01T23:11:06","modified_gmt":"2020-08-02T03:11:06","slug":"as-if-there-were-any-reason-to-like-clayton-kershaw-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=44754","title":{"rendered":"As if there were any reason to like Clayton Kershaw more"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/span><\/p>\n

I like Clayton Kershaw.\u00a0 Dare I\u2019d say, I\u2019m 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.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We had little idea of what to really expect, since neither of us were Dodgers or Cardinals fans.\u00a0 We knew we\u2019d see Albert Pujols, and I knew that I wasn\u2019t going to see the Dodgers iteration of Andruw Jones, because he was already out on the disabled list.\u00a0 We didn\u2019t even know who was starting for either team, so on my Samsung A920<\/a> flip phone, I looked up to see Todd Wellemeyer for the Cards, versus some guy we\u2019d never heard of named Clayton Kershaw.\u00a0 Who?<\/span><\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 Pretty cool, we thought, getting to see some hotshot prospect\u2019s debut.<\/span><\/p>\n

And he didn\u2019t disappoint, either, as this Clayton Kershaw guy went six innings and struck out seven.\u00a0 He didn\u2019t get a decision, but the Dodgers went onto win the game in extra innings.\u00a0 But we knew we had just seen the start of potentially a really good pitcher\u2019s career.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Fast forward ten years, and Clayton Kershaw is basically the best pitcher of this era.\u00a0 He\u2019s already won three Cy Young Awards, a National League MVP award, and numerous other major baseball awards.\u00a0 He\u2019s thrown a no-hitter and also won the Roberto Clemente Award, which is an award for being a good human being.\u00a0 And he doesn\u2019t seem to show any indication of slowing down either, as he\u2019s among the league leaders in wins, strikeouts and innings pitched* still.<\/span><\/p>\n

*stats that the saber-snobs don\u2019t care about, but still they\u2019re relevant<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Needless to say, there\u2019s 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.\u00a0 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.<\/span><\/p>\n

Anyway, as if I needed any more reason to like Clayton Kershaw, there\u2019s this story that emerged this Father\u2019s Day involving him, some commemorative baseballs, and a notoriously unpopular attention-whoring ball hawk<\/a> whom I will not mention by name because I\u2019d wager money he\u2019s 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 \u2018hater\u2019 on his insufferable Twitter account.<\/span><\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 Sadly, he\u2019s notorious enough to where Kershaw recognized who he was, and said to him no:<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

And when he pressed on, Kershaw proceeded to shut him down and flatly refuse:<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

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\u2019t really operate in reality to a degree and proceeds to stick his foot in his mouth, by comparing useless baseballs to useable currency:<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

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<\/em> before he got in touch with Kershaw.\u00a0 Not sure if he realized that the fact-checking nature of The Internet would reveal that, or if he\u2019s some next-level meta troll who firmly believes that feigning controversy is the best way to keep a rage burning.<\/span><\/p>\n

Either way, I just love the notion that the best pitcher in baseball absolutely shut down the most insufferable baseball fan on the planet.\u00a0 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.<\/span><\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 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.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I like Clayton Kershaw.\u00a0 Dare I\u2019d say, I\u2019m 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, … Continue reading As if there were any reason to like Clayton Kershaw more<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[62,52,156,124],"class_list":["post-44754","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brog","tag-baseball","tag-owned","tag-social-media","tag-trolls"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44754","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=44754"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44754\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44759,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44754\/revisions\/44759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}