by Cary Osborne
Last.
Last season in the Major Leagues.
Last player off the field at Dodger Stadium after Game 5 of the 2025 World Series — the last Dodger home game of the season.
Last player off the field on Monday after the World Series championship celebration at Dodger Stadium.
Kershaw also got the last word on stage during the World Series celebration.
It’s as if it were all scripted. But It wasn’t. Moments like these are earned, especially for one of the greatest Dodgers of all time.
“I feel super fortunate and blessed to be here,” said Clayton Kershaw, moments before he stepped off the field at Dodger Stadium for the final time on the active roster. “The Lord gives you talent, and then it’s kind of how you work at it. It’s kind of what you make of it, I guess. But there’s a lot of things that had to go right? I had to get drafted here. There’s a lot of things that are out of your control. I guess what I’m trying to say is I’m just very grateful, very grateful, that it worked out this way. I get to end it back-to-back champs. Can’t beat that.”
Clayton Kershaw’s career has come to a close. And the fact that it has ended with a World Series championship on Saturday and a parade on Monday is the perfect culmination of an 18-year run that began at this very stadium with a strikeout of Skip Schumaker on May, 25, 2008.
Between May 25, 2008 and Nov. 3, 2025, there are three Cy Young Awards, a 2014 National League MVP, a Roberto Clemente Award, a no-hitter and enough achievements to run as credits at the end of a movie. Kershaw also experienced personal milestones. He married his wife Ellen. They had four children and another is on the way.
“We got married in 2010, so she’s been here for 15 of the 18 years,” Kershaw said. “And we were dating before that. We had kids here — we have four and a half kids growing up here. Our whole families came together being a Dodger. So this is all we know, too. It’s going to be a weird transition. But it’s just really special, too.”
Kershaw said he didn’t know what’s in store for his future. The Dodgers open the 2026 season at Dodger Stadium on March 26. They will raise the 2025 World Champions flag, and there will be a ring ceremony in those opening days. That would be a natural return for the legendary left-hander.
“I’m on the no plan, plan,” he said. “I really don’t know what the next year, two years, five years looks like, which is kind of scary. But it’s kind of a good thing, too. I’m excited not to have a schedule, not to have a routine. Never do an arm band again for the rest of my life. Never try to throw a weighted ball to throw harder again. So there’s a lot of things that I’m looking forward to.”
He gave an affirmative no on if coaching is in his future.
So he leaves the game as a player, and one of the best in history.
“I’ve always kind of downplayed the whole legacy thing,” Kershaw said. “I think baseball legacy will stop. At the end of the day, there’s always going to be somebody bigger, better, stronger, faster that beats all your records, does all your things. So it’s the relationships and what your peers think of you that matter. To the guys in the clubhouse, the guys that you spend every day with, that’s what I want to remember. That’s the opinions that matter to me. And so, I hope I left a good impression.”
He also leaves the game as something else after the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays in seven games in the World Series.
First.
2025 World Series: Clayton Kershaw finishes his career in first was originally published in Dodger Insider on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.