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By Bobby Ross Jr. | Religion Unplugged
LOS ANGELES — On a sunny Sunday afternoon, 10-time All-Star pitcher Clayton Kershaw stood atop the Los Angeles Dodgers dugout and declared his love for Jesus.
Microphone in hand, the future Hall of Famer thanked the thousands of fans — a sea of blue-and-white Dodgers jerseys and T-shirts — who stayed for the postgame program on Christian Faith and Family Day.
“Jesus, thank you so much for this day,” Kershaw said as he led the Dodger Stadium crowd in a prayer. “What an opportunity to get to be here and glorify you and talk about you and how much you mean in our lives. Help us every single day to follow you as best as we can.”
The scene, which I witnessed while reporting on MLB faith nights for Religion Unplugged last summer, reflected the importance of faith in the life of the three-time National League Cy Young Award winner.
READ: Jesus at the ballpark: Why MLB teams host faith nights
“The Last Of His Kind: Clayton Kershaw and the Burden of Greatness,” a new book by Andy McCullough, touts itself as the definitive biography of the Dodgers ace.
Sportswriters tend to let “holy ghosts” haunt their coverage of athletes who mention God, so I wondered if McCullough — a senior baseball writer for The Athletic and former Dodgers beat writer for the Los Angeles Times — would delve into Kershaw’s religion.
I’m pleased to report that McCullough expertly weaves faith — so crucial to what makes Kershaw tick — throughout the book’s 400 pages.
READ: For baseball star Clayton Kershaw and his wife, faith provides a foundation
That’s not to suggest “The Last Of His Kind” serves, in any way, as a devotional guide. At its heart, this is a baseball book — a deeply reported, descriptively riveting one. It’s the best I’ve read since “Yogi: A Life Behind the Mask,” Jon Pessah’s epic 2020 portrait of the late Yogi Berra, a 10-time World Series champion with the New York Yankees.
This column appears in the online magazine Religion Unplugged.
Photo by Jon SooHoo, Los Angeles Dodgers
Faith. Family. Fastballs. 