Dodgers Interview: Clayton Kershaw “Fired Up” for WBC and Reflects on Retirement
Kershaw on Team USA: "I'm Just So Fired Up"
SCOTTSDALE, AZ — Clayton Kershaw dropped by The Pat McAfee Show and sounded exactly like you’d expect: loose, funny, and still wired for competition, even in “retired MLB” mode. McAfee opened by running through an ESPN stat sheet that reads like a Cooperstown plaque, then Kershaw spent the rest of the segment talking Team USA, the World Baseball Classic vibe, why he walked away from a full season grind, and what it’s like sharing a clubhouse with Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto.
McAfee set the tone with a list of live-ball era dominance. “Live ball era since 1920… lowest ERA, Clayton Kershaw. Lowest WHIP… Clayton Kershaw. Lowest OPS… Clayton Kershaw. Minimum 250 starts,” McAfee said, then summed it up with, “whenever you talk about greatness personified, it is actually this man.”
Kershaw smiled and leaned into the hang. “Thanks for having me. This will be fun.”
Charity At-Bat Could Cost Clayton Some Cash
From there, the conversation swung to the WBC and the idea of a retired Dodgers icon pulling on a USA jersey. Kershaw sounded genuinely fired up about being in camp and being around the stars. “I feel great, man. I’m so excited to be here and be with this group,” he said. “I Amazon’d all my gear. I’m ready, dude. I’ve been ready for a long time. I’m just so fired up to be on this team.”
And he made it clear he’s showing up to help in whatever role they ask. “I told D-Ro (manager Mark DeRosa), I told Andy Pettitte, our pitching guy, I was like, ‘Look, whatever you guys want. I’ll throw zero. I’ll throw every game. It doesn’t matter. I’m done after this. So, I’ll do whatever you want.’”
Part of the fun was that McAfee was literally going to stand in and face him, with a donation gimmick tied to outcomes. When McAfee said most guests don’t volunteer to donate, he made a point to say Kershaw was different. “Kershaw was like, ‘I would actually like to donate alongside you in this thing,’” McAfee explained as they rattled through the rules. Extra-base hit, strikeout, ball in play, every pitch, every ball, it all had a dollar amount attached.
McAfee also joked about Kershaw “pitching against high schoolers” to get ready. Kershaw didn’t pretend it was pure dominance. “The results have been mixed. I’m not going to lie. They’ve been mixed,” he said. “I think the velo might be not what it should be, but the arm feels great and I think I have enough for you. I think I can get you out.”
Expectations for WBC
That led into the more interesting stuff for Dodger fans: Kershaw talking about what he wants a team’s day-to-day energy to feel like in a tournament setting. He described baseball as a sport that demands rhythm and balance, with the intensity coming in bursts. “I think that’s the way baseball is,” he said. “You play every day, so you can’t just be locked in for the whole day.”
Then he went right to what makes the WBC different. “From everything I’ve heard about this tournament, the adrenaline, the atmosphere itself will get you locked in,” Kershaw said. “It’s so much different than a spring training game.” He pointed to his own Dodgers as a reference point, saying guys who’ve been there describe it like October. “A lot of guys like Will Smith and some of these guys that were on the Dodgers that told me about it said it’s like a playoff game, playoff atmosphere.”
Kershaw also sounded like a dad on a mission in a room full of superstars. “All my boys are sending me baseball cards,” he said. “All my kids saying, ‘Hey, I need Aaron Judge. I need…’ I was like, ‘All right, guys. I’ll get it done.’”
Dodger Memories
When the hosts asked him for the standout moments of his career, Kershaw went straight to the thing that matters most to a pitcher who lived his whole professional life with the Dodgers. “I would say one of the World Series,” he said. “I got to do it three times.” And then he landed on the perfect capstone. “Especially this last year, my last game ever, get to win the World Series. Couldn’t script it any better than that. It was such an amazing moment for me.”
He also admitted the first one hit differently after years of coming up short. “We had a lot of times we got to the postseason we didn’t win,” Kershaw said. “For me to win that first one and finally get that monkey off my back… was amazing.”
Time to Say Goodbye
The retirement talk was where Kershaw was most transparent. He acknowledged the temptation of being around a roster that, by design, expects to be playing deep into October every year. Then he explained why it was time. “I’m not that confident anymore,” he said, laughing, “you look up at the gun and you’re throwing 87, 88. I think it might be time to hang it up.”
He made it about the full-season grind more than any single moment. “Physically too, I think I have enough in the tank for these three weeks,” Kershaw said. “You ask me in September if my body’s okay, I don’t think it would be.”
He described the velocity arc like a slow fade rather than a sudden cliff. “My velo kind of stopped going up about six or seven years ago and then slowly the deterioration happened,” he said. “It was just over time and then I started having surgeries.”
Then he painted a picture every pitcher recognizes, that winter build-up where you wonder if your arm is going to climb back to the number you need. “Every offseason when you go and throw bullpens… you’re throwing 82, 83 and you’re like, man I don’t know if I’m going to be able to make it, get to 90 this year,” he said. “And then finally, this past offseason, I was like, you know what? This feels like it’s the right time. This is just getting harder and harder to gear up and go.”
And the line that landed hardest for Dodger fans: “I love playing baseball. I love baseball so much. I love those guys and I love the Dodgers so much. I would have played as long as my arm would have let me, but I think my arm told me it was time.”
Insights on Japanese Stars
Because it was a WBC segment, Kershaw also got hit with the obvious question about facing Japan and whether he’s giving away anything about Ohtani and Yamamoto. Kershaw didn’t play the secrets game. “Shay and Yama are so good and they both go about it very differently,” he said, then compared Yamamoto’s routine to a steady daily discipline. “Yama is in the weight room every day doing these same things.”
With Ohtani, Kershaw sounded like everyone else who has ever tried to explain him: a mix of admiration and disbelief. “With Sho, he’s got to pitch and he’s got to hit and he’s a monster in the weight room and he’s so fast,” Kershaw said. “It’s amazing what Sho does.” Then he went blunt. “As far as secrets, I don’t know how he does it. I have no idea. I’ve watched him for a few years. Still have no idea how he does it.”
He also gave a little glimpse of Ohtani away from the cameras. “He’s great. He’s funny. He speaks a lot of English, which I don’t know if he lets on to the media too much,” Kershaw said. “Sho’s been a great addition to the clubhouse and everybody loves him.”
Pride to Represent the USA
Finally, Kershaw brought it back to why the WBC hits people in the chest. “It’s so cool,” he said about putting on Team USA. “It’s a bucket list thing for me. I’ve tried to be on this team a few different times and it hadn’t worked out for numerous reasons, but now that I finally get to do it and represent USA… it’s an amazing thing.”
And he knows exactly what makes the tournament pop for fans. “Just the matchups,” Kershaw said. He brought up the ending everyone remembers from the last WBC, with Ohtani facing Trout, and how much it meant on the field. “That swing and miss to end a game like that and to see how meaningful it was for Team Japan to win that,” he said. “That’s all I’ve heard, how much people want to win this thing for their country.”
Kershaw on McAfee was part comedy, part charity stunt, part baseball clinic, and part love letter to the game. He’s retired, sure. He still talks like a guy who wants the ball in a big spot, even if it’s just for an inning against a talk show host with a donation scoreboard. For Dodgers fans, the best part was hearing him say it plainly: the love for the uniform never changed, and the decision to step away came from knowing his body, trusting his arm, and leaving on the best possible last page.
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