When Calvin lost his Hobbes
Thirty-three years ago, Bill Patterson started the comic strip, Calvin and Hobbes. He was my favorite comic strip writer and his daily strip was a key part of my life 30 years ago. Ten years ago I wrote this for TBLA about my best friend Jerry Sullivan who was the Hobbes to my Calvin.
I wrote this last December but never published it. I wish the original ending was still true.
Twenty-one years ago as I was approaching my 28th birthday I was recently divorced, lost all our mutual friends in the divorce, and had a cynical view of life that manifested itself in sarcastic one-liners that shockingly put off most people. At that point, I had few friends and wasn’t very interested in making new ones.
At work, a tall lanky guy had joined the company and after the first impression on both sides, the idea that we would become friends seemed far-fetched. The only thing I knew about him was that he hated Tom Lasorda and my Dodgers, and to make it worse was a Yankee fan.
For a while, we paid little attention to each other and as our jobs didn’t really mix we rarely had interaction, however, we had a mutual friend who was determined that we be friends. She kept inviting us both to lunch until finally one day to make her happy we all went to lunch.
That first lunch started our lifetime friendship. I didn’t quite know what to make of him but I did enjoy the conversation. Turns out he was Bill Maher before Bill Maher was potty trained. Our combined disdain for the world made for cynical heaven. It was enough of a connection that we had lunch again and again and from that, we created a friendship that still stands large today twenty-something years later. It was a bizarre friendship that had some huge obstacles to overcome.
He was 12 years my senior
He was tall and I’m short, and my first inclination is to dislike tall people.
He was a chain smoker; I’d stopped smoking when I was 16.
He was a huge drinker who was most comfortable in bars and with the people who frequented them. I didn’t even go into a real bar until I was over 25.
At the age of 17, he was the state Tennis champion in Kansas, and a graceful athlete. I’m a short stout guy who got by more on tenacity then on athletic skill, and grace was never part of my repertoire.
Upon graduation from HS, he and his best friend used the buddy system and joined the Army to fight a war in a country they had never heard of. I never served my country in any capacity and didn’t understand why boys would go off to war to kill or be killed without understanding why.
He was a huge Raider fan. I hated them.
At the time I worked out about 2 hours a day, he never worked out a day in his life.
Worse of all he hated Tom Lasorda and my Dodgers.
Those were the differences but we had fun together. He was deeply intelligent and could see right through people. Vietnam had taken its toll but he managed his life as best he could. We talked sports, played sports, talked about books, politics, and watched sports, and admired women. For two years he was my MNF companion back when I cared about football. Just about every day for two years we had lunch together and the routine was always the same. He’d bring the USA Today and I’d bring the LA Times, we’d read the sports sections of each paper and then trade off. Then we’d read the comics. At the time it was the golden period of comics. Doonesbury was at his peak, the Far Side was worth a conversation every day, but a new kid had arrived in town. Calvin and Hobbes; and they killed me every day. I could always tell when they were good because Jerry would let loose a bark like laugh. Short but to the point. Some people have a good laugh, Jerry was one of those. If you heard it, you knew it was worth finding out why.
At work, the friend who got us together in the 1st place called us Calvin and Hobbes. He was the older tall wise tiger and I was an out of control short youth who had a little too much energy and always said the wrong thing because the empathy and edit button had yet to exist in my mind. He had a measured way of talking, never talked to hear himself, and usually could make his point in a sentence while I needed a paragraph.
I learned first hand that nothing shook this guy, he was calm in every situation. “You need to calm down” was something I heard a lot from him but he always said it with a laugh or in a tone that never bothered me. I once almost drove him over a parking cliff in my hurry to get somewhere. He calmly looked at the pole that had kept us from dropping a story onto a Porsche and asked if I planned on using reverse. Later just before he left our mutual workplace a friend and I talked him into going bungee jumping when it was illegal and you had to drive to some remote spot by invitation only. We ended up at this place where you jumped from a tethered hot air balloon just before sunrise so as to get the jumps in before the police found the spot. The guy running the balloon was already drunk on Jack when we started. The guy checking our locks was killed two weeks later when he did a bungee jump and hadn’t checked his own locks (true story). Mutual friend Mark Lippert and I did our jumps without any mishap but when it was Jerry’s turn he ended up getting smacked by the tethered line and by the time he was on the ground he had blood all over his face. It made for a great picture and story but I was plenty scared for him when his head was snapped back by that line.
Our fun all came crashing down one day when we had a company party. Our new warehouse had just been completed and those who were part of the Culver City warehouse were going to be moving to Dominquez Hills and the rest of us were headed to the sterile corporate Santa Monica office. The party moved from a hotel/bar to my place in Santa Monica but I had to take a co-worker home first. By the time I got to my place, Roger and Jerry were waiting for me and told me that our friend Rueben and been run over while trying to park his motorcycle in front of my place. It was a sobering end to a fun two years. (Rueben survived that accident but would pass away from liver disease four years ago) .
Jerry would leave our company soon after that and start a journey of jobs that saw him hang his hat in San Jose, Palm Springs, Chatsworth, Las Vegas, and finally Austin. He’s now 60 and hanging out in Austin. The idea that Jerry is in Texas and not California is a tough one for him.. No one appreciated Southern California and the woman of our area better than Jerry. I never expected Jerry to make it to 60. With his smoking, I figured I’d be doing his eulogy but so far he’s eluded the big C. Our getting together was very unlikely but I’m sure glad it happened. For the last 20 years, our friendship has mostly been reduced to phone conversations. It works, but the fun of Jerry was hanging out with him. Throughout those 20 years, he maintained his hatred of the Dodgers and I still hate the Raiders. He will always be the tall wise tiger to me. I was saddened when the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes came to an abrupt end but not as sad as when my real life Hobbes road off into the sunset. Since Jerry left I’ve had little inclination to read the comics anymore.
It would be great if that was how the story still ended. Life however always seems to be throwing some Kershaw like curves at you. During the same week I was basking in the Dodgers finally winning some postseason games, my old Hobbes has come down with a multitude of cancers. Lung Cancer, Liver Cancer, and Bone cancer have invaded his space. I don’t know what the future holds for Jerry but I do know when he is gone he will be missed. He helped whoever he could with whatever means he had. On the surface, he was a cynic but underneath he had a big heart and real compassion for those who deserved it. Anyone who had the benefit of his help and friendship understands what I’m saying. I’m not sure where my life would have turned if Jerry had not been there at the time we met. I know one thing, my life would have been lesser without his friendship.
EPILOG
Jerry L Sullivan died on Feb 24th alone in a VA hospital in Austin, Texas. His ashes will at some point find themselves scattered in Yosemite, his favorite place in the world besides sitting in a bar surrounded by pretty barmaids and drinking friends.
The journey to Clippertown is complete
There was a time when the Lakers meant more to me than the Dodgers and Rams. From the time I first saw Jerry West hit that 60 foot shot in 69 to send the Lakers into overtime and eventual loss, they were my team. Without even thinking I can still name every starting member of the 1971-72 championship team including the subs like Flynn Robinson and John Q Trapp.
I saw them all, Wilt, West, Goodrich, Kareem, Nixon, McAdoo, Magic, Worthy, Scott, Coop, Rambis, Campbell, Shaq, Kobe, Gasol and hundreds of others. With Chick, I watched or listened to just about every game from 1970 until the day Chick died.
I rarely watched them at the forum because seats were out of my price range. So I purchased Clipper season tickets in 1990 when Bo Kimble was drafted number one by the Clippers. This allowed me to watch the Lakers twice a year, watch Bo Kimble become a star, and the prices were ridiculously cheap. $20 for ten rows, right of the basket at the old Sports Arena.
That didn’t work out as planned. Bo Kimble was a massive bust, but when Larry Brown took over the team in 1992 and led the team to the playoffs they quickly became my second favorite basketball team. Not many remember but back in 1992, that team led by point guard Doc Rivers took the eventual Western Champion Utah Jazz to the limit losing in five games. Included in that five-game series was game four played in Anaheim because of the Los Angeles Riots which closed down the Sports Arena. Game four was the best game in Clipper history in the 20th century.
Then, Magic Johnson got aids in 1992. What had once been a massive waiting list for Laker Season Tickets dissipated and so we got Laker Season Tickets. I kept my Clipper Season Tickets for a few more years but eventually, I dropped them as I couldn’t go to very many games. My focus was once again on the Lakers. We had great seats, about even with the free throw line, lower section. Those Laker teams never won a championship but they were fun to watch. The Eddie Jones/ Elden Cambell/ Divac/Sedale/Cedric Ceballos years.
Two things happened that would change things. The Lakers and Clippers moved to Staples Center. The Lakers took my great seats and plunked me behind the basket and more than doubled my price. What had been great seats became horrible seats. A Clipper rep called me the day before the season started and asked if I wanted to be a Clipper Season Ticket Holder again. I was doubtful but he comped me two tickets to opening night. The Clippers had just drafted Lamar Odom and I did want to see him. I hadn’t stopped watching the Clippers but I certainly wasn’t a fan as I had been in the brief Larry Brown era. I said yes, and that changed my basketball life around. Lamar Odom would score 30 points in his Clipper debut. My comped seats were next to where the Clipper Spirit would congregate, the seats were on an aisle, the press area was just to the front. The seats were fantastic, the view of the girls was fantastic, the rookie was fantastic. I was sucked in and signed back up.
It wasn’t all roses. That might have been the best game of Lamar Odom’s career. Only seven times in his long career would he score 30 points or more. The fact he did it in his first game was such a tease. The Clippers were horrible for years, and for many games, I didn’t have a lot of Clipper fans around me. The arena was often filled with more fans from the opposing team. That said the team was supported by a small but vocal group of fans who rallied around the Q/Maggette/Miles/Pike teams but only once from 1999 – 2010 did they make the postseason. I’m not going into those years, this is about the journey not the details.
While I was going to Clipper games, I was still at heart a Laker fan and enjoying the success of the Shaq/Kobe teams. Eventually, I got my Laker seats moved to a better location. The Shaq / Kobe feud left a bitter taste in my mouth, and as Kobe took over the team and dominated I wasn’t as into them. Then Chick died. Then Kobe was accused of rape. That changed everything. I stopped enjoying watching Laker games and instead focused my attention more and more on the Clippers.
The black cloud around the Clippers was always Donald Sterling. He was a despicable man, who tried to buy respect. One of the richest men in Los Angeles he was also a deplorable landlord and horrible owner. I was an open Clipper fan while he was an owner but he was still an embarrassment to me. When luck came the Clipper way and he was forced out for his racist comments little did I expect the team to be purchased by the richest owner in the league. Ballmer gets his own story, but I’m sure glad he’s the owner of the Clippers now and it did lift that black cloud.
I enjoyed Bledsoe/Gordon/Blake/Jordan long before Chris Paul showed up. I would have loved to have seen the team keep the Cleveland pick and grow with Irving instead of being handed Paul by the NBA commissioner. That is hindsight for sure since the Cleveland pick was just pure luck when it turned into the number one pick and Irving. That said even though the Clippers enjoyed their most success during the regular season under Chris Paul, I can’t say I really enjoyed watching him be the general of the team. He just wasn’t fun to watch for me. I started selling most of my tickets and would only go to about 10 games a year instead of the 20 – 30 I had been going before Chris Paul showed up. I know that is strange, here the Clippers were having the most success at any time in their history, but I didn’t enjoy the team as much as I’d enjoyed prior teams that didn’t have that success.
Chris Paul left last year. Blake during the year, and Jordan this summer. The team was completely rebuilt with the trades of Paul and Blake. I enjoyed the team last year even though they didn’t make the postseason more than the Paul years. A strange comment I know, it is just how I felt.
This summer LeBron James came to the Lakers. I still have my Laker season tickets but I haven’t been to a game in five years. I found a partner who buys them all up front. That is another story. I was wondering with James in town and the Clippers rebuilding if that would rekindle my old love of the Lakers. I started watching the games again, but have to say I couldn’t develop a rooting interest even with King James and a host of talented kids. Two weeks ago I went to a Laker event at their practice facility hosted by Michael Cooper. I never felt comfortable. Coop kept making disparaging remarks about the Clippers(they must be worried about them).
Last week I went to an after game Clipper event. The Clippers had beaten a talented TWolve team and everyone was in a good mood. It didn’t start out well, they gathered 100 fans in a room and provided no food/drink/entertainment for almost an hour while we waited for Montrezl Harrell to show up. Once he did though, I enjoyed the event and while I was sitting there, feeling very comfortable with other Clipper fans I thought about how much I love this particular team. This team had limited expectations entering this season but they are blowing the minds of the NBA establishment. They play hard, they are fun to watch, they have a budding star, and they have the Boban.
I can say for certainty now, that when I’m at Staples or at home listening to Ralph I’m as comfortable as I ever was watching the Lakers or listening to Chick.
It was a long journey that started with Bo Kimble making a left-handed free throw in honor of Hank Gathers, but eventually that long and winding road has brought me home.
I’m a Clipper fan. Yes, yes I am.
Players and Manager stay the same
but MLB keeps picking off members of the Dodger family. Last year the Braves took Alex Anthopoulos out of the Dodger front office and made him their Executive Vice President. The Phillies took Gabe Kapler and made him their field manager. This year the Giants continued the raiding by making Farhan Zaidi their new President of Player Operations. 2018 Dodger 3rd base coach Chris Woodward was plucked by the Texas Rangers to become their filed manager. That is quite a brain drain in just two years. I’d like to wish Chris Woodward good luck but find it hard to do the same for Farhan. I kind of hope he’s a spectacular failure. Nothing personal.
Yet, much to the consternation of many Dodger fans, David Roberts had his option exercised and will manage the team in 2019 even as they work toward a longer extension. I have been blown away by the number of Dodger fans who have told me that Roberts should have been fired. Almost to a person, every Dodger fan I know who I don’t know via a Dodger blog or social media has expressed this opinion to me. I guess I was unaware of how many of them have placed the blame on him for the Dodgers not winning a World Championship because he mismanaged the World Series. I thought he made some questionable moves and none of his hunches worked out but overall I thought the team lost the World Series because:
- The played a deeper than normal outfield in games one and two in Boston
- They hit like shit
- Other than Walker and Hill they mostly pitched like shit
But hey, blame the manager.
I’m not a big Dave Roberts fan, but I hardly think he was the reason the team didn’t win the World Series. I do know that if Puig had played like Machado, shit would have hit the fan but given he was a future free agent I guess Roberts felt it best to just let Machado be Machado. Though given the performance of Machado in the World Series they might have been better off if shit had indeed hit the fan.
The good news (at least for me) is all the Dodgers who could leave are coming back except Grandal. In an unexpected move Clayton Kershaw signed on for an additional year with no opt-out so it looks like he just might be a Dodger for life. The Dodgers saved a million by re-negotiating a contract for one year with David Freese. Today we learned that Hyun-jin Ryu accepted the Dodgers qualifying offer and will return in 2018.
That leaves Yazmani Grandal as the only player of note leaving the Dodgers. His spot will be tough to fill but I’ll look at that in a future column.
Working my way back to you babe
Two years ago I was shocked that the American electorate fell for a lying flim-flam man to be the leader of their country. It was only later I would learn of the involvement of a foreign nation in helping sow the sentiment via social media that helped elect the 45th President. But, all that Foreign Country did was sow the sentiment. The sentiment was there, the hate, the fear, the greed. That realization was a cold blow after eight years of Obama and hoping a new era had been ushered in. Little did I know the hate had simply been brushed under the rug and was just waiting for some hot air to blow it back into the open.
In those two years, my worst fears of his administration have come true but a hardy 40% of the electorate continued to support this President, meaning I was out of touch with a large percentage of Americans. I could understand 15 – 20% because hating anyone, not like you has always been an American passion but 40% alarmed me. The flat out lying every time he opened his mouth is incredibly bizarre.
If President Trump’s torrent of words has seemed overwhelming of late, there’s a good reason for that.
In the first nine months of his presidency, Trump made 1,318 false or misleading claims, an average of five a day. But in the seven weeks leading up the midterm elections, the president made 1,419 false or misleading claims — an average of 30 a day.
Even after they destroyed thousands of families who came here only seeking asylum so they could send a message to those who would make such a trip. Stay home or we will rip your family apart. We are not the answer to your trouble. You’d think Christians would have been appalled. I was wrong, these asylum seekers were brown and poor weren’t after all Citizens so do unto them whatever you feel like because evidently, the New Testament was all about protecting National borders. Who knew?
Even after White Nationalist after White Nationalist commits murder and mayhem in his name.
n Monday, an attorney representing Patrick Eugene Stein, one of three men convicted of plotting to bomb Somali refugees, filed an explosive memo in U.S. District Court in Kansas. Stein, his lawyer argued, should receive a more lenient sentence because he was inspired by then-candidate Donald Trump. “The court cannot ignore the circumstances of one of the most rhetorically mold-breaking, violent, awful, hateful, and contentious presidential elections in modern history,” attorney Jim Pratt wrote, “driven in large measure by the rhetorical China shop bull who is now our president.”
Anyway, unless you live under a rock you already know all of this. What I had hoped was that our country would have come to their senses and that these midterms would be a referendum on our Presidents corrupt to the core administration. Checks and balances were restored to 1/2 of the legislative portion of our branch of government when the House was taken back by the Democrats. If Speaker Ryan had done his job, had treated Trump like he would have treated Hillary Clinton, the checks and balances would have been working but when the Legislative branch does nothing, the system does not work. That was the least outcome I desired, and I got that. But I didn’t’ get enough and the thought-provoking writer Sarah Kendzior summed up eloquently how I was feeling last night.
If the midterms were a test of the country’s character, Americans failed | @sarahkendzior continues to speak with clarity and nuance; refreshing in the onslaught of takes on the election, and the socio-political state of the US in general https://t.co/xEpVsOrSTU
— Sarah Jankowitz (@SarahJanks) November 7, 2018
We gained something yesterday, and for the first time in two years, I feel we may be back on the path toward the hopes of Lady Liberty that our country constantly strays from whenever someone feels the need to fan Nationalistic fears.
As a child, the New Colossus poem written for Lady Liberty spoke much more to me than any constitution. We were the good guys. At least I thought we were. The reality is that we were never as good as we thought we were. We have always had the folk that Sarah Kendzior writes about except now we seem to have all of them at the same time.
Our national character is bifurcated anguish. Our national character feels like it’s possessed by every hellish ghost of American history: white supremacist patriarchs, gilded age swindlers, paranoid McCarthyists, Know-Nothings and Klansmen and con artists and terrorists. These dark impulses were always there, as American as the impulse to form a more perfect union and to fear nothing but fear itself. Nowadays, maybe we fear ourselves the most.
New Colossus
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
Anyway, my gratitude goes out to every person who actually works at making the American Democracy a thing. I’m not a doer but I sure admire those of you who are.
Three hurrahs for Kershaw and Dodgers
I had hoped those who were predicting 5/150 or even 4/120 were crazy and that if the Dodgers and Clayton Kershaw came to an understanding it would be a reasonable one, but never did I imagine that the extension would be this reasonable.
Signing Clayton Kershaw for 3/93 without an opt-out tells me several things:
- Clayton wanted to pitch for the Dodgers and subverted his ego to help make it happen.
- The Dodgers wanted Clayton but did not want to be stuck with the possibility of an onerous contract.
- This just might be his last contract. He has never struck me as someone who will pitch forever since he has a full life outside of baseball.
I’m not as vested in Clayton Kershaw finishing his career as a Dodger as many Dodger fans but I love everything about this contract. I was having lunch with three Dodger fans when it was announced. Two were willing to go 120/4 or even 150/5 if that was what it would take to bring him back. One felt that 4/110 was reasonable. Those three were all optimistic that Kershaw could regain his ace status. I kind of think his best days are behind because those best days were the best anyone has ever pitched, and rarely do you get to revisit the past but I would have liked to have seen him stay at a reasonable future extension at 20 – 25 Mill per year. I just didn’t think Clayton would agree to pitch for that price. Instead, he fooled all of us and signed a three-year deal adding about 28M to his current contract.
Hats off to everyone involved in this contract. Clayton Kershaw, his agent, and the Dodger front office.
Who isn’t excited to see what Buehler/Urias/Kershaw can do for you?
Cherry picking Ryu’s Postseason like a seasoned Kershaw postseason apologist.
He ranked Ryu as the 22nd best Free Agent and I won’t quibble as I have zero ideas how I would rank the free agents but it was his comment about Ryu’s postseason that caught my eye.
22. Hyun-Jin Ryu
Possibly the most thorough and impressive of all of the comebacks. Ryu came back from the depths of shoulder hell to have a fantastic run. In the regular season, at least. In the postseason, he finished miserably, giving up 11 runs in his final 13 innings.
Still, while you shouldn’t expect a sub-2.00 (or sub-3.00) ERA again, Ryu is going to be a relative bargain because of his health history. Unless he’s a complete waste of money because of his health history. Po-tay-to, po-tah-to, really
I didn’t think Ryu had a miserable postseason but as Grant noted he did give up 11 runs in his final 13 innings. Of course, when you exclude the game where you excelled you can get lines like that. For instance, if we discussed the last two games of Clayton Kershaw’s 2018 postseason we get someone who gave up nine runs in his last eleven innings. That sounds bad. Especially since we excluded his eight innings of shutout ball in the 2018 NLDS against Atlanta, and his brilliant game five in the NLCS that turned the series around.
Ryu suffers from the same fate. Ryu was also brilliant in the 2018 NLDS shutting out the Braves for seven innings and getting the Dodgers started out in a very positive manner. In his next start against the Brewers in the 2018 NLCS, he shut them out for four innings. In the fifth, he gave up a solo home run, followed by a single, double putting runners on 2nd / 3rd with one out. He was done, and Madson came in to get the final two outs while giving up just one run. It would be the last time anyone would say Madson did his job. That game wasn’t good but like many Kershaw, apologists would say “he only had one bad inning”, if you take away the 5th, he was fantastic. In game six of the NLCS, he was legit hammered. Bad game. I don’t feel he pitched a bad game in the World Series. He gave up a home run in the 1st inning and then was brilliant until he had two outs and two strikes in the 5th when Vazquez got a lucky single to RF. The opened the floodgates for Ryan Madson to put a horrible line on Ryu that I didn’t think was indicative of his game in any way.
Or to put this another way, Ryu was no worse over his last two postseason starts than Clayton Kershaw was but when you look at the total postseason package for both pitchers, they had their great moments, and their bad moments, and judging them on their last two games just seems like the bigger picture is being missed.
The Dodgers don’t owe Clayton Kershaw anything
except for gratitude for being the HOF pitcher he has been. I read a tweet yesterday by a former Dodger that the Dodgers need to do right by Clayton Kershaw. I have no idea what this means. During the time that Clayton Kershaw helped lead the Dodgers to six straight NL West Divisions and two straight NL pennants, they have paid him $164,000,000, with an additional $70,000,000 on the books over the next two years. The Dodgers have already done right by Clayton Kershaw.
Clayton can opt out of his contract by this Wednesday, if he does so he will be leaving that $70,000,000 on the table. Supposedly the Dodgers and Clayton are in discussions about his future contract.
I guess one could argue that the Dodgers would benefit from Clayton Kershaw staying for the next two years and being paid $70Million to do so. I would not be making that argument, I’ll leave that for others.
He not only isn’t what he was but he hasn’t pitched over 175 innings since 2015 and given it is a back issue, it is doubtful he ever will again. His velocity took a noticeable dip in 2018 and it ain’t coming back. Even with the reduced velocity he was still very effective but do you really want to bet $70Million he can replicate that success over the next two years? I’d love to have Clayton remain a Dodger I just don’t think it is reasonable to pay him twice his value to make it happen. I mean I’d pay twice his value if that meant paying him 10 Million instead of 5 Million but 35 Million instead of 17 Million seems a bit steep to be paying for sentimental value.
That being said whatever Clayton does is a win-win for me. It is not my money. If Clayton walks, I think having him off the books will give the Dodgers some flexibility to use that $35 Million spread around instead of focused on one pitcher. If he stays, we keep our homegrown future HOF and still get an above average pitcher even if he’s being paid at an elite level.
What I don’t want to happen is for Clayton to get paid over the next five years as though he is still an elite pitcher. If they extend the contract from the current two to four or five years, I hope it is a reasonable contract for both parties. I doubt this happens. I expect Clayton to either walk or opt-in on his current contract. Ain’t no one going to be paying Clayton Kershaw $35 Million per year going forward except with the current contract he has.
Clayton was the best for a very very long time. We need to be prepared for that not being the case in the near future. It certainly won’t be the end of the world if he walks. The Giants didn’t win a World Championship until the best player of his generation was no longer a Giant. The Dodgers didn’t win a World Championship during the greatest run of a regular season pitcher I’d ever witnessed in Los Angeles. Many have said that is not the fault of Clayton Kershaw, but game five happened in 2017, and that doesn’t hold water. I’m not upset about that. I wanted Clayton Kershaw to hold those huge leads in game 5 for Clayton Kershaw. These are not my Championships that are lost on the mound, they are his, and he worked his ass to get one. I’m just sorry he couldn’t get one. Maybe if he stays he still can, but he won’t be the big boss on the team for the first time in ten years even if he’s still being paid like he is.
Dodgers, Yesterday and Today 