Clayton Kershaw announced before his Friday start against the San Francisco Giants that it would be the last regular season outing of his career. This decision was obviously not made on a whim, but I imagine, when he was scanning over this year’s schedule debating whether it was time or not, there was a bit of a twinkle in his eye when he saw that if he did call it quits, his last game could be against an old, familiar “foe.”

Not that Kershaw needs to massage any optics in terms of his performance on the mound (in the regular season, that is), but even the best-of-the-best want to go out on a high. And every journey’s end should echo its beginning — that’s just good storytelling. Those final Hollywood moments saturated with the understanding of time’s weight while still, in subtle ways, t

See Full Page