Clayton Kershaw
When you're a kid, you just hope you make it to the big leagues. So to get to go say you're going to play in the World Series, it's an incredibly special moment. Up there with getting married and having kids, it's right up there with one of the best days of my life.
Baseball could end tomorrow but you're just understanding that God is in control of it and we are not.
If I don't go 200 innings, it's been a tough year.
I've kind of found out that when I do get into trouble, that when I do have people on base, sometimes the best thing is to throw a little bit more off-speed, back off a little bit.
All I really try to do is whatever hitter gets in there, I just try to get him out in as few pitches as possible.
I'm not trying to strike everybody out.
It's amazing to see where baseball can take you.
It's always great to do something to impact kids in sports.
You are not supposed to convert anybody, that's God's job. But at the same time, you can be His disciple and live for Him and when people ask you why are you living for Him, you can show them why and profess your faith.
I started really believing and understanding what it meant to be a follower of Jesus when I was probably in high school sometime. From there, just trying to draw on my faith since then.
I think more than anything, just putting in perspective what this baseball thing means and understanding that it is a gift and I didn't do anything to deserve that and realizing that if we continue to look to God to guide our path, you never know what could happen.
I was given a gift to throw a baseball. I didn't do anything to deserve that.
I love baseball. I have a huge passion to play the game.
It's just Lord be with me... Winning and losing isn't the most important thing. He's not worried about the outcome of the game. He's worried about how I reflect Him and how I'm pitching... I think every time you pitch and every time you go on the mound you have to understand that it's for Him.
It's an uncomfortable thing to talk about myself, in general.
I don't think I'm going to ever be the guy that gives soundbite after soundbite. If somebody has a question, I'll answer it. But if they don't, I don't have anything to say, really.
I get paid a bunch of money to do this, and so there's a responsibility to my teammates, every single day, to show up and be the absolute best you can be.
I don't care how you get the outs. It doesn't matter to me how bad it looks, how good it looks, how many strikeouts you have. None of that stuff matters as long as you get the outs.
I don't know if money is something to really celebrate.
Baseball is so hard as it is. For me, if you simplify it, it takes a little bit of the weight off, rather than trying to figure out all these other things. It's just peace of mind.
I hate watching myself on video. I don't ever do it. I'm just too hard on myself, and I always go away feeling like, Wow, I've got a ton to work on.
What a blessing it is to throw a baseball for a living!
Baseball is going to end some day. I realize that as soon as you retire you know, people forget about you in this game fast! There's the next young guy coming up that's always better than you. So, for me, it's just about using baseball as a platform to do a lot of things.
I think first and foremost when you look at every other religion all over the world - its works based - you have to earn your way to the Kingdom. With Jesus, it's so different because we didn't do anything to deserve Him. He literally died for us and saved us! There's nothing else like that in the world. There is no other God like that!
God gave me an ability to throw a baseball. He chose me for a reason, and I want to honor Him with that.
Jesus is the only true way to Heaven.
Who knows how many times I'm going to get to go to the World Series? I know more than anybody how hard it is to get there.
The way I look at it, 29 teams fail every year and one team succeeds.
I don't really judge myself, I guess. I don't really judge other players.
My goal is to win just for the teammates and the guys in our room.
Winning the World Series is really all that we play this game for.
All the individual stuff is great, but I just want to win a World Series.
I love L.A. I love being out here.
There's a lot of variables you can't control in trying to win a game, but at the end of the day it does mean something to win a game in the big leagues and be on the mound.
You can make a lot of cases that you can take the win stat out of the game and you can still figure out who the good pitchers are, and I agree with that to some extent. But there's something about your win-loss record, there's something about having wins by your name that means something. Regardless of how important that is.
I'm not a big thinker. The less thinking the better.
I take a little pride in my diaper-changing, actually.
Cali was a name I've always loved.
Everyone talks about how hard it is to have a kid, and that scares you into waiting.
The Steph Currys, the Jordan Spieths, those guys are exciting to watch.
You never want to be in a defensive mode or have a defensive mindset. You always want to know that you're in control as the pitcher, you make him get hits, you're never passive, always aggressive. If I get beat, I want it to be because I got rocked, got hit hard, never because I walked a couple of guys and before you know it.
As competitors, winning is what drives you.
Things change. Routines change. Things have to change. But change doesn't mean less. It just means different.
There's a lot of times that you got to put yourself out there to fail, you can't be afraid to fail.
At the end of the day that's why I play the game, to glorify Him in everything I do and to compete for Him.
I've failed my fair share of times no doubt.
I don't turn off being a dad. It supersedes being a baseball player.
Regardless on winning the Cy Young, I have one goal that never changes, and that's to win every start.
I'll never take for granted the opportunity to put on a Dodger uniform.Collection: Opportunity