Sign my jersey! Everyone wants a Clayton Kershaw souvenir — including his opponents
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Alden Gonzalez
LOS ANGELES — It was the middle of June, the San Diego Padres were in town for what promised to be a heated series against the Los Angeles Dodgers, and Joe Musgrove, their injured ace, had one thing on his mind:
Securing a signed Clayton Kershaw jersey.
Major league players often send each other jerseys for personalization, to commemorate friendship or admiration or even milestones. But Musgrove had done that only a handful of times in his nine years as a major leaguer — all for former teammates he was once close with, never for a prominent member of the Padres’ biggest rival.
“This is the first that I’ve sent one over in admiration for what someone has done for the game,” said Musgrove, who grew up a Padres fan before ultimately pitching for the club. “I know he’s flooded with them now, and it might seem like a lot, but he’s made a big impact on this game — not only as a player, but for the way he handles himself.”
Kershaw will make his final regular-season start at Dodger Stadium on Friday, in what we now know will be one of the last appearances of his career. But even before the news of his impending retirement became official Thursday, the likelihood of it was high enough for Major League Baseball to extend him a special invitation to this year’s All-Star Game. And for a number of opposing players to seek opportunities to pay respect in their own way, whether it’s offering praise, expressing gratitude or, often, seeking autographs.
Kershaw, 37, has noticed that jersey requests have “slightly increased from years past” but stressed it’s “nothing crazy.” Sometimes a home series will go by and nobody will ask. Others, he’ll be flooded with them. “It’s like they all talk,” Kershaw said. He signs them all, either by listing his accomplishments — 3X NL Cy Young, 2014 NL MVP, 2X WS Champ! as he wrote on one for Colorado Rockies starter Kyle Freeland — or scribbling a brief message. In his mind, it wasn’t long ago that he was on the other side.
“It’s amazing how fast that flips, you know?” Kershaw told ESPN last week. “You don’t think that you’re the old guy until it happens, and then you are. It happens fast.”
WHEN KERSHAW SIGNED his fourth consecutive one-year contract with the Dodgers in March, he was considered a luxury. Blake Snell and Roki Sasaki had already been added. Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Tyler Glasnow were coming back healthy. Shohei Ohtani was on track to return as a two-way player. The likes of Emmet Sheehan, Tony Gonsolin and Dustin May were next in line.
But when Kershaw rejoined the rotation in the middle of May, in the wake of offseason knee and toe surgeries, he helped stabilize a staff that had once again absorbed an avalanche of injuries. In August, as the Dodgers’ rotation began to round into form, he found another level, winning all five of his starts while posting a 1.88 ERA. Kershaw is throwing the slowest fastball of his career, offsetting it with a slider that oftentimes lacks its traditional bite and resorting to more inventiveness than ever, even with the occasional eephus pitch. And yet his record is 10-2 and his ERA is 3.53.
“He’s making jokes about how he’s only throwing 86, 87 — and he’s still getting outs,” San Francisco Giants starter Logan Webb said. “To me that’s the most impressive thing.”
Webb was a 12-year-old in Northern California when Kershaw made his major league debut. His high school years coincided with a four-year stretch from 2011 to 2014 that saw Kershaw claim three Cy Young Awards and an MVP, accumulate 72 regular-season victories, tally 895⅓ innings and establish himself as one of the greatest of his era. Competing against him, as a fellow frontline starter on a division rival, hasn’t taken any of the shine away.
Said Webb: “He seems to amaze me every single time.”
Two months ago, Webb shared an All-Star team with Kershaw for the first time and was adamant about securing a jersey from him, even though, he said, “I usually feel awful asking guys.” On Friday, Webb will watch from the opposite dugout as Kershaw makes what might be the final Dodger Stadium appearance of his career, depending on how he factors into L.A.’s October plans.
The Dodgers boast a six-man rotation at the moment, and two of those members, Yamamoto and Snell, are basically guaranteed to start in a best-of-three wild-card series. The third spot would go to Ohtani, unless the Dodgers surprise outsiders by deploying him as a reliever. Then there’s Glasnow, who was lavished with a $130 million-plus extension to take down important starts, and Sheehan, a promising right-hander who has been effective out of the bullpen.
Kershaw wasn’t healthy enough to contribute to last year’s championship run and wants nothing more than to help with this one. But he’s also realistic.
“We’ll see,” Kershaw said. “We’ll see what happens. My job is just to pitch well. Whatever decision they make, or if I get to make a start or do whatever — they’re going to make the best decision for the team. I’ll understand either way. Obviously making it hard for them is what I want to do.”
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts doesn’t know what role Kershaw might play on a postseason roster, but he said “there’s a place for him” on it.
“The bottom line is I trust him,” Roberts said. “And for me, the postseason is about players you trust.”
ANDREW ABBOTT SAT alongside Cincinnati Reds teammate Chase Burns in Dodger Stadium’s first-base dugout on Aug. 26 and couldn’t understand what he was seeing.
“Is that a changeup?” he asked.
Kershaw famously doesn’t throw many changeups, largely because he has never been confident in his ability to do so. But suddenly Abbott was watching him uncork a pitch that traveled in the low 80s and faded away from opposing right-handed hitters, the continuation of a split-change he began to incorporate a couple years ago. To Abbott, it spoke to the ingenuity that has extended Kershaw’s effectiveness.
“He knows what he’s doing,” Abbott said. “He can just figure things out on the fly.”
The Reds’ third-year starting pitcher had shared a clubhouse with Kershaw for the first time during the All-Star Game in Atlanta this summer. He wanted so badly to pick his brain about pitch sequencing, but he also didn’t want to waste Kershaw’s time; he made small talk about their Dallas ties and left it at that.
Six weeks later, when the Reds visited Dodger Stadium, Abbott made it a point to provide a visiting clubhouse attendant with a Kershaw jersey to be sent to the other side for a signature. He already had one of Christian Yelich, who represented his first strikeout; Edwin Diaz, the brother of his former teammate, Alexis; Joey Votto, a Reds legend; and Aaron Judge, arguably the best hitter on the planet. Abbott initially didn’t want to bother Kershaw, worried that he might just be adding to an overwhelming pile, but he couldn’t run the risk of missing what might be his final opportunity.
“I watched Kersh since I was a kid,” Abbott said. “I mean, I was 9 when he debuted. I just like to have guys that I’ve watched and I’ve kind of idolized. Those are the ones I go after. It’s cool that you’re in the job with him, too.”
After spending the past four years pitching for two of their biggest rivals — first the Padres, then the Giants — Snell signed a five-year, $182 million contract with the Dodgers over the offseason and told president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman that he wanted his locker next to Kershaw’s. Snell’s locker neighbored Kershaw’s in spring training, and he now resides just two lockers down inside Dodger Stadium’s newly renovated home clubhouse.
As a fellow left-hander, Snell has tried to soak up as much as he can from watching Kershaw, specifically how he utilizes his slider. He has learned, though, that a lot of his success is driven by his mindset.
“He never gives in,” Snell said. “He’s a competitor. And you can’t, like, train that or teach that. You either have it or you don’t. And he’s very elite at competing. The game comes, and he’s the best version of himself.”
Snell arrived in the major leagues as a 23-year-old former first-round pick. But he did not believe he would stay very long, so he made it a point to gather as many personalized jerseys as he could. He already has two framed Kershaw jerseys hanging on an office wall littered with other sports memorabilia, but the end of his first year with the Dodgers has left him wondering if he has enough.
Said Snell: “I might get me another one.”
TO THOSE WHO have observed Kershaw throughout his career, the thought that he would even allow himself to be miked up while pitching in a game — let alone revel in it — stood as a clear indication that this would probably be it. Roberts, who managed the National League All-Stars earlier this summer, noticed a more reflective, appreciative side to Kershaw even before he took the mound for his 11th Midsummer Classic.
Roberts noticed it when Kershaw addressed his NL teammates before the game, reminding them this was an opportunity to honor those who got them there. He noticed it 13 days before that, on the night of July 2, when Kershaw finished a six-inning outing with the 3,000th strikeout of his career and spilled onto the field to acknowledge the fans. Most of all, he has noticed it through the ease with which Kershaw seems to carry himself this season. “The edges,” Roberts said, “aren’t as hard anymore.”
“He knows he’s had a tremendous career, and I think that now he’s making it a point. He’s being intentional about taking in every moment.”
Kershaw allowed himself to savor his 3,000th strikeout — a milestone only 19 other pitchers have reached — and made a conscious effort to take in every moment at this year’s All-Star Game. His wife, Ellen, and their four children have made it a point to travel for every one of his starts this season, even when Texas schools restarted earlier this month, adding a layer of sentimentality to the stretch run.
But for as much as Kershaw would like to soak in every inning remaining in his major league career, he can’t. The season keeps going, the stakes keep ratcheting up, and Kershaw believes in the link between dismissing success and maintaining an edge. “The minute you savor, the minute you think about success, you’re content,” he said. But that also means he can’t truly enjoy the end.
There’s a cruelty in that.
“Yeah,” Kershaw said, “but that’s OK. Because you want to go out competing, just like you always did. At the end of the day, being healthy, being able to compete and pitch well, being on a great team — that’s all you can ask for. If you do all of the other stuff, you become content or satisfied or whatever it is. Then it’s all downhill.”
ESPN’s Jesse Rogers contributed to this report.
We are two games into both 2025 league championship series, and it’s time for our initial impressions based on what we have seen on the field.
The Seattle Mariners are headed home with a 2-0 ALCS lead after downing the Toronto Blue Jays on consecutive days to start the series.
In the NLCS, the defending champion Los Angeles Dodgers have jumped out to a 2-0 road advantage of their own against the Milwaukee Brewers.
What has stood out most so far — and what’s next for the World Series hopefuls? Our MLB experts weigh in.
ALCS: Mariners vs. Blue Jays
What has surprised you most so far?
Jorge Castillo: The assumption was Seattle’s pitching staff, drained after an exhausting ALDS that concluded with a 15-inning Game 5 on Friday, would need at least Sunday’s ALCS opening game to reset. But Mariners pitchers did not relent. Game 1 starter Bryce Miller set the tone, rebounding from a rocky first inning to give the Mariners six crucial innings. The bullpen starred in Game 2, when Eduard Bazardo, Carlos Vargas and Emerson Hancock each tossed two scoreless innings. Tuesday’s off day should only help the Mariners as the series shifts to their cavernous home ballpark.
Jeff Passan: The lack of competitive at-bats from the Blue Jays. Yes, the Mariners’ pitching is very good. But the Blue Jays — whose high-quality, work-the-count, spoil-pitches approach all season helped deliver them an AL East championship — were practically tweaking to swing at Miller’s pitches in Game 1 and weren’t much better in Game 2. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is hitless. As are Daulton Varsho, Andres Gimenez and Davis Schneider.
Four runs in two games is not going to do it against a lineup as deep as the Mariners’ and with a pitching staff as susceptible as the Blue Jays’ has been this postseason.
How can the Mariners close this out at home?
Castillo: Hitting home runs at T-Mobile Park isn’t easy — the Mariners hit 134 on the road and 108 at home — but long balls are often the difference in October. Such was the case in Game 2, when the Mariners scored eight of their 10 runs on three homers — two three-run home runs and a two-run shot.
The Blue Jays surrendered 209 home runs during the regular season — the sixth-most allowed in the majors and the most allowed by a postseason team. If the Mariners continue hitting mistakes over the fence, the Blue Jays’ chances of winning four of the next five games are slim to none.
Passan: Do not treat this as a coronation. Too much has happened in Mariners history to ever doubt that something can go very wrong. They have existed 49 years and never so much as made a World Series.
The real answer: cut down on the punchouts. The Mariners are striking out more than 30% of the time over the first two games, and it diminishes opportunities compared to Toronto, which is at 13%. Like Jorge said, as long as Seattle is hitting home runs, this might be moot. In the absence of that, though, putting the ball in play can save them.
What can the Blue Jays do to get this series back to Toronto?
Castillo: It starts with scoring more runs. The Mariners’ pitching staff, tired and all, has silenced an offense that demolished Yankees pitching last week. The Blue Jays tallied only four runs in the two games in Toronto. All were scored in the first two innings. In Game 2, the Blue Jays went 1-for-28 with three walks after the second inning.
Nathan Lukes and George Springer are the only Blue Jays with multiple hits in the series. Guerrero is 0-for-7 with one walk after finishing the ALDS 9-for-17 with three home runs. Varsho is 0-for-7. Addison Barger and Andres Giménez are 0-for-6. Springer’s leadoff home run in Game 1 was the only ball Toronto hit over the fence.
The Blue Jays scored 21 runs in a three-game sweep of the Mariners during the regular season. But that was at home in May, and T-Mobile Park is a pitcher’s haven. It’ll be a quick series if their bats don’t wake up in Seattle.
Passan: Just look at Game 1 of the NLCS. The Dodgers’ offense is struggling, and it really doesn’t matter because Blake Snell threw eight of the most brilliant innings you’ll ever see. And even though Shane Bieber and Max Scherzer, the Blue Jays’ starters in Game 3 and Game 4, are not near Snell’s caliber today, they are both former Cy Young winners who have pitched in huge games. Seattle’s pitching is too good for Toronto to win this series via slugfests. So the Blue Jays are simply going to have to beat the Mariners at their own game: solid starting pitching and enough relief to backfill.
NLCS
What has jumped out to you most so far?
Bradford Doolittle: The Dodgers’ starting pitching has been lights-out. It’s not just all the zeros that Blake Snell and Yoshinobu Yamamoto put up; the Brewers’ hitters looked overmatched against them most of the time. Milwaukee had a clear plan to ambush Yamamoto as often as possible in Game 2, but after Jackson Chourio‘s first-pitch leadoff homer, it just didn’t work. Yamamoto kept pumping in strikes, and the Brewers did nothing with them.
Jesse Rogers: The Dodgers’ starting pitching went from iffy to dominant in the blink of an eye. Part of the reason the Brewers went 6-0 against L.A. during the regular season is that they faced a team piecing together its starting staff. Dave Roberts even admitted to “slow playing” Snell just to have him ready for this moment.
Not even a first-pitch home run by Chourio off Yamamoto in Game 2 could change the narrative. Yamamoto threw a 111-pitch complete game, giving up only two more hits and a walk after that long ball. On most teams, Tyler Glasnow and Shohei Ohtani would be the No. 1 and No. 2 pitchers, but the Dodgers will roll them out against Milwaukee at Dodger Stadium later this week. It’s an embarrassment of riches — and it could doom the Brewers’ chances at their first World Series title.
What do the Dodgers need to do to close out this series at home?
Bradford Doolittle: Just keep riding the wave. The L.A. rotation has become the story of the postseason so far, and even though the Dodgers’ offense hasn’t matched the pitchers in terms of dominance, this is the hottest team around right now. And the offense isn’t going to grind this way forever.
Jesse Rogers: Just keep pitching the way they are and maybe get Ohtani going at the plate. Not that they’ve needed him so far, but if he starts to light it up, this series won’t return to the Midwest. Closer Roki Sasaki is also likely to be more comfortable in his home setting than he was in Game 1. All signs point to the Dodgers winning a short series.
What do the Brewers need to get this series back to Milwaukee?
Bradford Doolittle: They need traffic on the bases, especially early in the games. They haven’t been able to showcase their athleticism against the Dodgers because no one has been getting on base. Get on base, hope to unnerve Glasnow and Ohtani and get into that L.A. bullpen by the fourth or fifth inning. The formula isn’t complicated, but the way the Dodgers are going, executing it will be a challenge.
Jesse Rogers: Putting up a crooked number would help. Somewhere along the line, they need one of those Brewers innings — the kind that forces the defense into mistakes while utilizing their speed and ability on the basepaths to create havoc. Easier said than done against this Dodgers starting staff, but if they can get into the underbelly of L.A.’s bullpen, they have a chance. That’s the path forward for the Brewers.
Inspirational thought of the week:
“Are you surprised?”
“Surprised, Eddie? If I woke up tomorrow with my head sewn to the carpet, I wouldn’t be more surprised than I am right now.”
— Clark Griswold and Cousin Eddie, “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation”
Here at Bottom 10 Headquarters, located behind the storage trailers that hold all of the makeup and rubber noses required to attempt to make Glen Powell look even remotely unattractive in “Chad Powers,” we, like Chad’s South Georgia Catfish teammates and coaching staff, sometimes struggle with recognizing who and what is actually standing before us. Then, when they reveal their true identities, which we’re assuming Chad will do at some point, we are left standing with our jaws on the floor and face in our hands like Hugh Freeze during another replay review.
See: Last week’s much-anticipated Pillow Fight of the Week of the Year Mega Bowl between what were then the Bottom 10 third-ranked UMess Minuetmen and the fourth-ranked State of Kent. And we weren’t alone in our anticipation of a close game. The wiseguys in the desert with their calculators next to the shrimp buffet had Kent as a 1.5-point favorite, and our ESPN Analytics team’s Ouija board Win Probability Index believed UMass had a 43.9% chance to emerge victorious.
Final score: Kent State 42, UMass 6.
See, Part 2: Penn State, which just three weekends ago came within a couple of knuckles of beating Oregon in overtime, was facing its second consecutive Bottom 10 contender, Northworstern, having lost to the then-ucLa Boo’ins the week before. And the Nittany Lions lost again, their third straight defeat, then fired James Franklin, who had coached them to within three points of playing for the national title just 10 months ago.
Let’s check on Penn State… pic.twitter.com/btJn0BbtgK
— Ryan McGee (@ESPNMcGee) October 11, 2025
The point is that no one knows what the hell we are talking about. But talking about it is so much fun. Well, for us it is so much fun. In Amherst, Massachusetts, and State College, Pennsylvania, they are looking out the window at the silent majesty of a winter’s morn and a guy in his bathrobe, emptying a chemical toilet into their sewer.
With apologies to former North Texas tight end Robert Griswold, former Northwestern tight end Bob Griswold, Cousin Eddie George and Steve Harvey, here are the post-Week 7 Bottom 10 rankings.
The Minuetmen are currently ranked 130th in points against, 135th in rushing yards and 136th in points for. They are also ranked 111th in passing yards. Do you think those other units look at the passing guys and say, “Stop making the rest of us look bad”?
The Beavers traveled to North Carolina and lost to Appalachian State, then hosted and lost to another North Carolina team in Wake Forest, then fired head coach Trent Bray, who wasn’t even the biggest Coach Trent to lose his job this week …
The good news for the Bearkats is they kame the klosest to akkcomplishing viktory as they have all season before sukkumbing to Jacksonville State Not Jacksonville City 29-27. Up next on the kalendar is a Konference USA Pillow Fight of the Week. Against whom do they klash? Keep scrolling …
Yep, it’s the Minors, who will travel to Sam Houston State on Wednesday night. Hopefully someone reminds them that Sam Houston State isn’t actually in Houston; it’s an hour north in Huntsville. Hopefully someone reminds them that it’s not the Huntsville in Alabama, but the one in Texas, one town over from Arizona, which hopefully someone reminds them is the Arizona town in Texas, not the state of Arizona.
Sources tell Bottom 10 JortsCenter that when James Franklin drove home from the office with his box of stuff, he was greeted in the driveway by Charlie Weis and Bobby Bonilla, who gave him a signed copy of “How To Make a Mattress From Your Pile of Money” by Scrooge McDuck.
The Woof Pack started the year with a loss to Penn State back when Happy Valley was still happy, and followed that with a win over Sacramento State. The rest of the year has been like another former Reno-based late-night show, HBO’s “Cathouse.” And just like that brothel reality program, we never admit that we’ve watched, but secretly we can’t look away.
If you were wondering when MTSU and Novada might play in their own version of the Pillow Fight of the Week, we have bad news. It already happened. The Blew Raiders scored two TDs in the final six minutes to win 14-13 back in Week 3.
When Trent Dilfer was fired by UAB, he went down to the locker room to tear a bunch of stuff up, but after 2½ seasons of him exploding like the red Anger guy from “Inside Out,” there was nothing left to break.
The Pillow Fight of the Week, Y’all Edition, is the college football equivalent of that pointing Spider-Man meme, as Georgia State Not Southern travels to Georgia Southern Not State, which is 2-4. The winner retains exclusive rights to “GSU” for the next year. The loser has to change all its logos to “GUS.”
For those of you — and we are talking to ourselves here — who are still bummed about the lack of substance in the UMass-Kent State game, picture in your mind Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda sitting on a Dagobah log as Luke Skywalker flies away to get his butt whipped by Darth Vader. “That boy was our last hope.” “No … there is another.” These Other Huskies travel to UMass on Nov. 12 … and host Kent State over Thanksgiving weekend. Also, how great would it be to see Obi-Wan and Yoda wearing #MACtion gear? Speaking of the Midwest, I’ve heard from a lot of Wisconsin fans that the Bad-gers should be in this spot. Yeah, I’ve seen your schedule. You’ll be here soon enough. To quote Luke’s dad — Skywalker, not Fickell — it is your destiny.
Waiting list: State of Kent, EMU Emus, South Alabama Redundancies, Oklahoma State No Pokes, Charlotte 1-and-5ers, Wisconsin Bad-gers, Bah-stan Cawledge, UNC Chapel Bill, clapping with fingers.
Alex Bregman plans to opt out of his contract with the Boston Red Sox, a source told ESPN on Tuesday night, confirming a New York Post report.
The move was expected and doesn’t rule out the veteran third baseman returning to Boston, but for now, he will be part of the free agent class for a second straight offseason.
Last offseason, Bregman didn’t find a home until the start of spring training, when he agreed to a three-year, $120 million deal with the Red Sox in mid-February that included opt-outs after 2025 and 2026.
Bregman, 31, got off to a fast start in Boston, hitting .299 with 11 homers and 35 RBIs before suffering a quad injury that sidelined him from May 24 to July 11. He finished the season with a .273 average, 18 home runs and 62 RBIs. Off the field, he was praised for his leadership on a young Red Sox team that lost in three games to the New York Yankees in the American League Wild Card Series.
After the team’s postseason exit, Red Sox chief baseball officer Craig Breslow declined to say whether contract discussions were already ongoing with Bregman’s agent, Scott Boras.
“Obviously, Alex has the right as structured in his contract to opt out, and he’s going to do what’s best for his family,” Breslow said Oct. 6. “At the same time, I will not miss an opportunity to talk about his contributions on the field, in the clubhouse, to the coaching staff, to the front office. Every conversation we’ve had, I think I’ve learned something about how his impact and influence have rubbed off on his teammates.”
Boston shortstop Trevor Story also has an opt-out in his deal after inking a six-year, $140 million contract with the team in March 2022. If Story exercises his player option, the Red Sox will have the right to exercise a club option to make the deal worth $160 million over seven seasons.
ESPN’s Alden Gonzalez contributed to this report.
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