"Clayton Kershaw"
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Hey there, Will Arnett here from SmartList. It's the podcast where Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes, and I interview somebody. Two of us don't know who that person is because one of us has brought on a surprise guest. That's the whole conceit. I wish I could describe it better, but I'm not that smart. So it's SmartList, and it's starting now. SmartList.com

Will, with the little tiny goatee we have going on, you look a little like Gomez from the Addams Family. Thank you. You're welcome. I can't tell if that's... I take everything as a compliment. It's a great way to go through life. You just constantly go, thank you. Can you guys tell that I've got a little bit of a goatee going here? I got about eight weeks of growth and barely see it.

That's not true. You can get a nice little beard going sometimes. It's a little gingy. Did you sew some of the mustache beard stuff from the hair on your head?

Did you, like, glue it together? Like, make a... We got to get Forte on here one time because Forte, apparently, when he was a writer on that 70s show, we were working on Brother Solomon and the... Will Forte was a writer on that 70s show? Yeah, yeah, sure. And on Letterman. I didn't know that. Yeah, and he goes... And she goes, oh, I remember, Will. He made her give him one of those styrofoam heads that you have to put a wig on to help, like, keep it in shape. I have hundreds of them for all my various wigs. And...

Forte, over the course of a year, would get his hair cut by her and he saved his clippings and he put hair on the styrofoam thing and then he made a face and then for facial hair, he used his hair short and curlies and then he gave it to John Solomon as a president at the end of the year as a representation of himself.

A pubic hair wig. That's hilarious. The wig was real hair, and it was so gross, and that's just forte. We got to get him on here. That's hilarious. Speaking of hair, I want you to know that I've showered, I've shampooed, and I've conditioned my hair for today's guest. It looks good. Wow. I'm not messing around today at all. That's incredible. This is a top-shelf guest. Sure.

You both might want to just kind of maybe take a break and watch a Friends rerun or something like that. Will, I know you're partial to Canadian sports. Sure. Sean, I know that you're not allergic to sports, but it's not up front on your – you don't have any sort of like sports screensavers or anything like that. Not anymore. This gentleman has played 12 seasons in the major leagues, debuted in 2008.

He's an eight-time All-Star. He's a three-time National League Cy Young Award winner. He's a 2014 National League Most Valuable Player. His 2.4 career earned run average and 1.01 walks per hits per innings pitched is whip. That's the lowest among starters in the live ball era. Kevin Costner. We have...

Mr. Clayton Kershaw with us today. No way. Okay. Well, this guy I've heard of. Look at that. Look at that. That's a beard. That's a man's beard. That is a beard. Thank you. It's really not good though, but yeah. Hi, pal. Very nice of you to say yes to this. Thanks for having me, guys. I'm excited. It was fun to listen to y'all banter. Yeah. Do you guys know each other?

Slightly. I went to the ping pong tournament a couple of years. He has a ping pong tournament on the field at Dodger Stadium, which is pretty awesome. How many years have you guys done that? Man, we've done it for, yeah, probably six or seven years now. It's pretty fun. This year, obviously, had to get canceled, but.

But it is a good time. And, I mean, Jason, you come to quite a few games. I mean, you're there quite a bit. Well, I used to go to every game. I've dragged Will to a couple. I do explain that, you know, stop waiting for the horn. Where's the puck? Yeah, the period breaks. But I used to go to every game. Then I got a wife and a couple of children and a job. And so now I just come to 20 games a year or something like that. But I watch every single game.

Wow. You only go to 20 now? Ish. Do you still have that dumb license plate frame that you're like, follow me to Dodger Blue. How dare you? Not in front of Clayton. Do you remember you had that? How many games does your wife, Ellen, watch? Does she watch every game?

Yeah, she so they have child care at Dodger Stadium. So that's kind of like a break almost for the game. You know, she can I don't know if she actually watches the game, but she goes. She goes to every home game. Just about. Yeah, just about when you're not pitching. Yeah. Well, it's not like she's going to watch the game, but she's there with the other wives and they hang out, you know, maybe have a glass of wine or something. It's kind of like, you know, just hanging out.

It's like Amanda in Ozark. Amanda's not going to watch every episode. No. But she will drink when she's playing with the kids. Right. It's good to know that Ellen's up to the same thing. For sure. Wait, so Clayton, so a couple things. First of all, how many kids you got? A couple? I have three now. Wow. I have three. Same. Yeah, we just had Cooper's our youngest now. He just got to be six months. So we're in the trenches for sure right now. Wow.

Dude, I'm right behind you. We're at about... You're at like five nannies. I have four. I have three and a stepson. Oh, so we're talking about kids, not nannies. We're not talking about... Oh, I have four nannies. Yeah, yeah. Four nannies, yeah. Okay. We're on full man coverage over here. Wait, so you've got three kids. You're right in the zone where they're little, and it requires a lot of...

Well, it's zone defense, right? At three. Two, you guys were man-to-man, and it was manageable. How old are the other ones? Yeah, so Callie's our oldest. She's five and a half, and then Charlie's three and a half. So girl, boy, boy, like five, three, and six months. And...

Yeah, zone defense, it's different, you know. Please tell me you had some help. You're not those parents that can do it all on your own and you don't need any help. I need help. I don't know if Ellen needs help. I need help. I think Ellen can handle it. But with the season and stuff, we do have somebody help us, so it's good. And how – when you travel away, like I go away when we do Ozark, but I'm back every weekend. You guys are gone for two weeks at a time often. Is that –

It's going to be tough to get an honest answer out of you here, but I mean, there's a couple of days of those two weeks where it is peaceful and enjoyable. Yes, you can admit to? I don't know if I'm allowed to admit to that. Jason wants some validation for his own feelings. Admit to 48 hours of like...

At least how about, how about the plane ride out of Los Angeles? I will say this. I think the first day that you get to like sleep and not wake up when the kid wakes you up is, is a glorious thing. And that is, that is awesome. Um, but then I do find myself like, you're just so busy until you go to the field. You're just like, you're just doing stuff constantly, whether it jump on the trampoline or, you know, whatever it is. And you're just going, but then like,

You don't see him and you're in the road at a hotel. You're like, what am I supposed to do? I have no idea. There's only so much Ozark I can watch. You know, it's like I'm done after that. Yeah, because it'll put you right back to bed and then you'll miss the bus. Now, I have to tell you, when one of these guys brings a sports person on,

I'm fascinated by the fact that you are, you're like the most famous pitcher in the world. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, don't you need to answer that? I don't know. Yeah, no, you are. And I'm fascinated by the talent. I mean, I grew up playing baseball and basketball and football and all that stuff. So I'm not like a dork loser about all of it. I'm actually fascinated by and so impressed with

your history and your success. I mean, there's nobody on earth that can touch you. It's crazy. - Well, likewise with you guys. Yeah, just acting is a whole different level too. - Here's the thing that I love these kinds of stories.

So Clayton, you and Matthew Stafford have known each other since high school. I do love this. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Does Sean know who Matthew is though? Matthew Stafford is a quarterback for the Detroit lions. Is he still with the lions? Yeah. So he's still with the lions. He's still under one of the big, if you look, nobody has earned more money in the last 10 years throwing a football than Matt Stafford. Is that true? Come on. Yes. Matthew. Matthew. I know. I know. I'm saying that to make him so he'll get mad and then want to come on and then we can have him on. But,

Wait, wait, wait. Does he correct you if you introduce him as Matt? Does he say Matthew? So I think what happened was when he became famous, they just started calling him Matt, but he's never been a Matt. He's always been Matthew. I don't know. I don't talk to him regularly anymore that often, but I don't know if he changed it on purpose, but to me, he's always... He's Matthew, but he's an incredible quarterback. He's an incredible athlete as well.

So walk us through a little bit how you and Matthew Stafford know each other. But Clayton was his center, Sean. Clayton snapped him the ball. Oh, wow. Do I have that right, Clayton? Yeah, I mean, you just skipped ahead like the whole story, but that's basically, that's the end of it. So yeah, we don't have to tell it. Yeah. So how did it happen? How do you and Matthew Stafford know each other? We grew up together. I mean, we grew up together starting like, we played like, we played soccer together. Where? What part? Dallas. Dallas in Texas. And, uh,

Yeah. I mean, we, we played all the sports. Matthew played baseball, basketball, football, and, um, he was way better at baseball than I ever was a football and, um, yeah, good buddies all through high school. And then, you know, he, you know, he went to Georgia to play football there and, uh,

Yeah, but he's great. He's a great guy, obviously. But before he went to college, since you did not, you came right out of high school into baseball. Well, I didn't even graduate high school, so you're ahead of me. Yeah, I dropped out of college, so you're fine in this room. You made a decision. I'm still going. You made a decision to stop playing football and throw the baseball ball.

a hundred percent of the time. Yeah, that was freshman year of high school. I just, I wasn't very good at football. I was, was never. And then, you know, you said it, I was the center. I was playing offensive line. I was just getting beat up and,

Just wasn't it wasn't it wasn't fun. So I I love football. I love watching football, but I wasn't fast enough to do anything fun. So they put me on the line and I was a little chunky and that was my spot. So but yeah, I started just playing baseball after that. Because you can be a heavy dude playing playing baseball. You can look like a softball player and be pretty good at it. You can look at the Red Sox. They're just a bunch of softball players. They just rake and rake and rake.

There's some interesting body types in baseball, for sure. Good for you. Much more diplomatic than what Jason was saying. We've got to go with Max Muncy. That guy's solid. Hey, he's a sneaky athlete. He really is. He can jump out of the gym, too, which you would not expect. He's faster than you, right? He's really fast. Seriously, one of the faster guys on our team. It's crazy. He's so good. Love that guy. So you're playing all the different sports, and I'm sure you're doing well at all of them. Are you in your 30s now? 32. 32.

Same. So you're playing all these different sports. What is the moment? So you said you stopped playing football. So you're a freshman in high school. I'm always interested by, like, it's so hard to pitch a baseball well. Anybody can throw a ball, but to pitch a baseball, when you actually start having control over pitches, when you're executing the thing that you want to do, whether it's whatever it is, whether it's a curveball or whatever, what is that moment where you start executing, where you're pitching, you're not just throwing? Yeah.

And somebody sees it and says, hey, kid. Yeah, like what is that age, though? Like, are you in your backyard when you first do that? Are you playing for high school or? Man, I don't know. I just always loved baseball. I was always I was always playing. You know, I started playing when I was six or seven and started pitching probably when I was 10 or 11. And I was always I was always OK, you know, and then junior year of high school hit and I really grew. I got a lot bigger and I started throwing a lot harder. And I was like, man, I might get to go to college to do this. And then

senior year sure enough I started throwing a little bit harder and pitching a little bit better and I got to get drafted by the Dodgers so it was just uh it happened so fast but it was yeah it was it was really cool and then that decision to not go to Texas A&M and go right into the minors that was a

risky decision because like what if it doesn't work out in the minors and now did you think well I can always I'm just defer enrollment and I can go to Texas A&M later how does that work no just I mean just financial they just paid me money to go play baseball so I was in on that

Right. But if it didn't work out, like if tons of guys go to the minors and never make it up to the big game, would you have gone back to college? Yeah. Some of those contracts, thankfully, that the teams do, they they they set aside a little money for you to go to college. Like if it if you play a certain amount of years and don't make it, they set aside a little money for you to go to college. So I think that's great. And they still do that, which is awesome. Wow. That's cool. And what do you think you would have studied?

Man, school was not, I don't know. Well, A&M, so you were going to do some sort of farming? Harvesting mainly. Agriculture and mechanical. No, my girlfriend at the time and wife now went to A&M. So she committed to A&M. So I was like, oh, I'll jump on the back. Thank God you said wife now. Yeah, and wife now. She's, yeah, same one. So she went to A&M. What'd she study there?

She was a comm major. Yeah. She's a very good public speaker. That's great. Now, before we leave the football end of your life, are you one of those big fantasy football guys on the Dodgers that you guys do the big draft and all that stuff? Thank you for bringing that up. Because you've got to start prepping, right? Yeah. We were back-to-back fantasy football champions, my partner and I. When you say we. Ross Stripling is my fantasy partner. Nice.

So back to back, that's, now is there a trophy? We have a trophy and I have a base, I'm commissioner of my baseball fantasy league and we have a trophy. We ship it around the country for the winners. Thank you. We do have a trophy. We do. You do have a trophy? Yeah. Who fell asleep?

I did because Jason talking about being a commissioner of his league. He's a multi-commissioner. Are you still doing, are you a commissioner? No, I knocked it down to one. I've got a job now. Wait, are you serious, Jason? You're a commissioner of a team? That's right. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, that's right. And I don't take any nonsense. Okay, I booted Olbermann out of the league for mouthing off too much about some of the rules that I like to throw in there.

How many arguments have you and Oberman had? We're going to get him on here so he can tell his side. But you and Keith Oberman have had a number of arguments over fantasy baseball. Argument implies that there's a winner and a loser. There's no competition when you argue with them. You're right out of the gate. You're going to lose. So the best thing to do is just boot them out of the league.

Plus he wins all the time too. I told you that when I used to play fantasy football in that same league and Keith did, and I tried to make a couple, he claimed to somebody recently that I wouldn't make trades with him. And I'm like, no, no, no. I tried to get him to make trades and then he wouldn't answer me at all. And I was like, well. Because they were offensively beneficial to you probably. Well, yeah. Why do you think I wouldn't make them?

So Clayton, I have a question. You're a left-hander, right? I'm a left-hander, yes. What's that like? No, I'm kidding. Tell me about like... Is it hard with a fork? Wow, because you know most people are right-handed. No, but back to what Will was saying and a little bit of what Jason was saying. If you went to school, there has to be something else that you would have maybe tried at least or other interests or, you know, what's the dream other than that?

Well, can we go back to the left-handed thing? Cause this is kind of a, this is important to me. So there's these scissors. So none of y'all are left-handed. I am ambidextrous. I write with my left, but I throw with my right. Cutting paper. You'll fail kindergarten. If you're left-handed, they don't supply you with the necessary left-handed scissors that you need. And so recently I stumbled upon recently, like within the last,

year of my life, I stumbled upon left-handed scissors and it's been an absolute game changer as well as spiral notebooks with the spirals on the other side. Sure, yeah, so you don't hurt your arm. Wait, would you send me one of those? Yeah, I get pissed off all the time with the spiral rings and the three ring binders. Yeah, the spiral is on the other side. So when you're writing like this, you don't- Yeah, oh, that looks like you have a problem. And you get the pencil lead all over your hand when you write. See, you get it, you get it. None of this is gonna be in the podcast. None of this.

No, come on. This is good. So you're a left-hander, which has been an issue by virtue of the fact that you were almost held back because of scissors. Thank you. How much cunning with scissors do they do at the schools in the Dallas area? It's tough to remember exactly, but based on my oldest, it's a lot. It's a lot. Now, why is it so— What about my question? Yeah, I'm trying to avoid that because I don't have an answer to that one. Okay, so it's baseball, baseball. It was this or nothing. Yeah. Yeah.

I think so. I love that. I love an all or nothing person too. I can't do anything else either. I have no other skills. So for our listener out there that doesn't know anything about baseball or Sean, usually you have a left-handed pitcher come in and pitch against a left-handed hitter because it's harder because the ball's coming from the side of the plate that you're standing on.

So you would think, well, if I really want to make a lot of money in baseball as a pitcher, I'd teach myself how to throw with both hands, right? So you guys had a guy last year. I forget his name now. Vendetti, Pat Vendetti. Yeah. So this guy threw.

with both arms. So you have a batter come up and he'd just take his glove and he'd put it on the other hand. What was it, like a thumbless glove or something weird like that? I guess so. Now, why aren't there more pitchers like that? And why was he so, like, he just came up for a cup of coffee and that was it, right? Yeah.

I mean, I don't know. It's so hard. I mean, not many people are ambidextrous. But you had to learn how to throw with your left hand when you were, you know. Do you have to learn though? Or you just know? Yeah, you just picked up the ball and started throwing, right? You just know. But if your parents had just been thinking a little bit more like Vendetti's parents and put the ball in your other hand every once in a while, Clayton.

But if you're Jim Abbott, you have no choice. Hey, now that was pretty impressive. Was that pretty impressive? Not your deep cut on that name. So, Sean, this was a guy with one arm. Are you being serious? Yeah. And he was a professional pitcher. He threw for the Angels. Very successful as a pitcher. Yeah. Next, I want to move to Clayton. I've got a very important question here.

I sweat a great deal when I exercise. Apparently, it's the mark of somebody who's in very good shape. Or on drugs. I told you I watch every game. So I've watched you sweat for years. You're a great, great sweater. Appreciate that. I have a question about the material that you men are forced to play in.

Now, I know that the wicking under material that you guys wear has really made great strides over the years. So I'm assuming the answer to this question is it doesn't bother you. But it looks like the uniform material is about the last thing in the world I'd want to sweat in, that thick polyester, scratchy,

day game nightmare can can you talk to me a little bit about the comfort level uh in major league uniforms they've come a long way thank you for asking about this by the way they've come a long way um i am probably on the excessive side of sweating so i i know that it doesn't wick as much as you need it to um so there's there's plenty of uniform changes for me especially in a day game situation and

As fortunate as I am to play in L.A., I can't imagine, you know, going to St. Louis and trying to pitch in the summer. Like, I think I don't, I would have to pitch with no uniform. I mean, there's just no way to do it. So you would veto a trade to Atlanta, St. Louis, any of your hotter, thicker climates, right? You'd have to. Otherwise, you're going to dehydrate. You're going to cramp up. It would be tough. I would probably lose some weight, though. It would be good. So wait a minute.

Playing sports in a big arena and on television with all these millions of people watching you is very similar to performing. I always try to relate it back to what I do because I'm a narcissist. Mm-hmm. Is, uh...

Do you have any crazy rituals or, you know, like preparations or anything like that before a game like that you do? I have tons of them before. Like I do a Broadway show or something. Yeah, we do. I think my teammates would probably say that I have quite a few as well. I just consider myself to be very routine oriented. Yeah.

they would say that I'm a little crazy. But yes, I do have quite a bit. You've had some teammates that I think beat you to that, but we won't talk about them. Yeah. We'll do that during the commercial break. What would you say is your weirdest thing that you wouldn't blame some of your teammates that they're not used to? Well, it's just my timing. Like I have everything down. Like if it's a game at 7-10, starting at –

Um, about like one 37. I know exactly what I need to do. You're joking. You're joking. Is it that precise? It's yeah, it's, it's, yeah, it is. Um, yeah, I'm not ashamed. I love routines too. Wow. Now I don't know how honestly you can answer this question, but, uh, to the extent that you can, um,

How do you... Where do you put this season in your head? I mean, like... I mean, I know there's a competition happening and you guys are competitive people, so let's win it no matter what the competition is. But...

In your mind, do you see it as a true season, as a true world championship, as a true – or are you guys looking at it uniquely and sort of strategizing differently? And in retrospect, do you think you'll look back at it differently or is it still too soon? Yeah. Well, I think you could probably answer that as a fan. Just like where do you rank it? For me, it's kind of like –

It's different. It's not an asterisk. It's not like that, but it's definitely different than every other year, obviously. So I don't know. It's like its own separate category. It doesn't mean that it's not going to be meaningful and we're not going to enjoy the chance to win or the opportunity to play in the playoffs or things like that, but...

It's definitely like its own. I mean, no fans is so weird. It's so weird. It's so weird. And how does this affect contracts? They just prorate it, right? Yeah, just prorate it. Yeah. So if you divide your salary up into 162 games and you just, you know, per game average and then you just make those for the 60 games. Yeah. Got it.

All right, so Clayton, I want to ask you a question that's a little bit of a third rail, but I'm not going to ask you the part that you probably don't want to answer. I want to talk about cheating in baseball. Now, the mouth covering...

on mound huddles. Okay. Well, you guys put your mitts up in front of your face so that people can't read your lips when you're talking to each other. You've been in the league 12 years, and I feel like it's only been going on for maybe 10 years. So I'm asking you as somebody who has been a part of the game before it. And now after is lip reading really that pervasive?

where everyone's got to cover their G-damn mouth when they're talking. Like, is cheating that bad? I cover my face with my hand when Will talks to me because I don't want to see him.

That's really all it is. Yeah. It's so like, listen, gang, like this isn't the CIA. Let's just talk about we're going to change a sign from this to that and get back to the plate. You know, what's going on with the glove? Well, I mean, if you're inside the stadium or if you're in the locker room and you see the coach talking to the catcher or the pitcher and he says, hey, change the signs to second sign. Right.

They see that on the TV. Are you not going to go tell your teammates that it's second sign? You're going to do it. But that's just it. The assumption is that whoever's watching the TV in the clubhouse can read lips.

Can people read? You can read that. But he's not going to do it like that. He's not going to enunciate so that the lip readers can be. It's not charades where they have to guess. But like they didn't do it back in the old days. Two words starts with first, second. I just, I'd love to see somebody just say, screw it and challenge the lip readers and just stop with the mint.

Man, I didn't realize that was such a big issue for you. I'll talk to him. Well, now it's spreading to other sports, Clayton. It's a real, it's an issue. Football too, huh? Football, they have the big like. Oh, yeah. Yeah. But what about coaches doing football on the sidelines all the time where they hold the play? Yeah, the little card in front of their face. Yeah. Do you hate that?

I do. I just think they're all so, you know, we will. Yeah. Now, you know, our, our friends in Houston, um, gave, gave cause to a little bit of concern, but I'm not, this is not in a question form. Um, and we'll just let it rest there. Okay. Thanks. Let me see quietly. Somebody else got a question. Thanks so much. Okay. So I have a question. Um, now this is going to, this may have to get cut because this is going to really show how smart list I am and stupid I am. What's baseball. Uh,

So when the Chicago Cubs finally won the World Series after 800 years, they were playing the Dodgers, right? Yeah. I let them win the series before they won the World Series. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Got it. Way to go, Sean. Thanks for that. Nice, Sean. No, no. Well, no. It's fine. It's fine. Because I'm from Chicago and like- Great city. Tears are rolling down my face. And I was like, oh my God, I can't believe- The White Sox won. The White Sox-

I can't believe they scored a three-pointer in the end. It was just unbelievable. But, no, but... Closing in on a question. Weren't the Dodgers a little bit kind of like, I get it, go ahead. Obviously, you try to win, but once the Cubs won, weren't you kind of like, it's pretty awesome that they won? Mm-hmm.

No. No? All right. Next question. No. No, I... Maybe looking back... I see where you're going with that. Like, you think the Dodgers just said, well, if we're going to lose, let's lose to the biggest losers in the history of baseball. That makes sense. Yeah, right. No, but I mean, of course you tried to win. Of course you played your best. Of course you shined. It was an incredible game. It was unbelievable. But come on, the Cubs hadn't won in like, you know, centuries. Yeah, I mean, I think the only thing... I think when a team beats you, I think subconsciously it's like, well, if they end up winning the World Series, then like...

We at least lost to the best team. Right. Makes you guys look better. Yeah. We lost to the world's best. So playing in Wrigley, playing in Fenway, Dodger Stadium, third oldest. I'm sure you have some favorite stadiums. Is there a consensus amongst the players of what the best – because I heard the Dodgers won this for a few years by the groundskeepers. What field is in the best shape usually, constantly? Like gets the best, the truest rolls. There's no hard spots. There's no –

Is Dodge Stadium still... Jason's into gardening. Jason's really into gardening. Yeah, no kidding. Bring everything around the green thumb. I've got some hydrangeas that are just today. To die. Who's got the best field? Yeah, so every guy kind of has their favorite spot, right? Like favorite city to go to is usually not their favorite city to play in. You know, like you want to go to New York, you wanted to go to Chicago to, you know, hang out, go to dinner, all that stuff. And

Like favorite playing surface is usually like California because it's just the best weather. So most of the California fields, our field is unbelievable. San Diego is really nice. Anaheim, all the, they have perfect weather. So I think that, and then, um, I love the way you didn't mention the giants. I love it. Keep going. See, I don't, I don't know. They don't even exist. They don't even exist. Yeah.

I think LA and San Diego are the two best. Got it. Now, you're not going out at night, though. You said some cities you like to go. You're not going out after the game and getting all crazy, right? Well, not this year. Right. But, I mean, any year. You can't. Yeah, you go to dinner. You go hang out, go to dinner. Have you ever played with a hangover?

You don't have to answer that. You don't have to answer that garbage. 48-hour rule. It's part of my routine. No drinking two days before. Is there any truth to Juan Uribe and Yasiel Puig having matching white Rolls Royces doing donuts in the parking lot at Dodger Stadium? What? I've never heard this before. Did they have matching white Rolls Royces? White Rolls Royces are true. That's true. They both had those. You never heard about them doing donuts? They must have. I love they had matching. I love that that's true. Why would you do it in that car?

Because Rolls Royces can get up and get after it. Oh, I didn't know. That's what I understand. All right. Beyond ping pong, what's your best other sport? Football? Oh, ping pong. I wish you didn't say besides ping pong. I don't really have another best sport. By the way, I play killer ping pong. I'm not even kidding, and I'm going to do it. Do you really? Yeah. He'll wax you. I've played it up since I was a kid.

Don't mess with him. He'll really embarrass you. I'll fuck you up. I will fuck you up. Did you? So I know you hosted the Ellen show for a little bit and I got to be on the Ellen show and play with Ellen a little bit. And she's super competitive about that too. Is she any good at that? Word on the street is, yeah. Yeah, she's not bad. Yeah.

No, but I'm serious. Jason, I want to do that. I want to do the ping pong thing. We'd love to have you. Well, next year, if you're nice to Clayton, he'll invite you. Yeah, I would love that. That would be great. And Kim will host it every once in a while. Yeah, he's hosted it before for sure. And what's the charity? So it's our charity. Kershaw's Challenge is the name of it. And every year we have kind of different beneficiaries and just kind of raise money for different places here in L.A. and Dallas and kind of everywhere really. That's great.

You guys still have a facility and an effort down in Zambia, I think it is. Is that right? Yeah, that's kind of where it got started. My wife's been going to Africa. She's been nine or 10 times now. And yeah, long story short, that's kind of how the charity got started with one girl over there named Hope, who's doing great now, which is cool to see.

Do you guys keep your eyes open for other areas around the world or even domestically here that could benefit from money or attention? Like is that kind of an ongoing effort or do you guys focus on the one place there in Africa? Yeah, so every year we have like grant applications come in. But basically we're trying to focus on our hometowns, which is L.A. and Dallas. And then we have something with International Justice Mission in the Dominican Republic here.

that I've been down there a few times and just really love what they're doing. And then Zambia is kind of every year. So we always do something with the Rise Africa in Zambia. But the local nonprofits in LA and Dallas are always changing, just trying to meet tangible needs wherever we see it. That's so awesome. You guys are going to skip a bunch of lines upstairs when you're all done with this. Jason, would you say that you ever miss an opportunity to skip a line?

He wants to talk about the iPhone again. All right. Now, you're a long ways away from retiring, but what would your ideal post-baseball career look like? Is it, you think just generally, is it in baseball? Is it like broadcasting? Is it coaching? Is it, you know, ping pong? There's a lot of money in champion ping ponging. Is there really? I think that's what it's called, too.

Ping-ponging. Champion ping-pong. Yeah, I need a hobby. You know, when I was a kid, I played a game called knip-knop, where the balls go through this little thing, and just a year ago, I realized it was ping-pong backwards. Go ahead. Hey, Sean. Yeah. Yeah.

You okay, buddy? I'm okay. Um, do you, uh, do you, I bet, I'll bet whatever it is, it's going to be something that's going to keep you home. So it's probably not going to be, uh, being a bench coach or a manager or any sort of traveling with the team. Yeah. I wouldn't expect to travel much once I retire. Um, I'd still love to like be involved somehow, you know, um, there's this role that every team has called a special assistant, which is awesome. Yeah. They just let guys come and hang out for a few days at a time and

Now, who's got that right now? Sandy Koufax or? Chase Utley is a special assistant. Yeah, Chase has got it made. It's a great gig. The Dodgers have so many. I can't even tell you. I've never seen them, but they're special assistants, but they're around all the time. What are the job requirements of that special assistant? Yeah, what do they do?

That's... I don't know. Yeah. Special assistant's a great gig. That's why it's such a great gig. You get a few laminates, a check, a little bit of respect. You had to be good when you played. And you had... People had to like you when you played. So, like, Chase was...

the man and we love Chase. And so he's got a great gig with us now. He's got a very dry sense of humor, doesn't he? I've only met him a couple of times, but that's what I would. He doesn't talk much, but it's funny. Has there been any really great new clubhouse prank over the years? Because like Hot Foot and Bubble Gum on the Hat and all that, there's some good ones, but. It's been done. Yeah.

Well, but I mean, I don't mean to ridicule them because doing it well, I'm sure, is probably a fine art. But have you been impressed with any of these young whippersnappers coming up out of minor leagues with some new kind of, wow, never thought of that? Man, you know, we don't, to be honest, the short answer is no. We don't have any great pranks. I think sometimes with like when we have famous people come in the clubhouse and things like that, we try to think of some different things that we can do. Here we go.

You know, just some things to make him feel maybe a little bit, you know, uncomfortable or things like that. So go ahead and tell Sean the story. And Will, if you're still with. I don't know what you're talking about. Yeah, I want to hear this really bad. Go. I'll let Jason tell it.

I've made a bad decision to, um, uh, go down and, you know, I've never, it wasn't a bad decision. Well, it, it was colorful and I'll never forget it. Uh, Stan Kasson, who is, uh, president of the team, uh, is a very, very nice man and does me a huge, huge favor of talking to me, uh, when he sees me every once in a while. And he offered to take me and my buddy down, uh, to the clubhouse after a win one game. He said, you got to see this. What buddy? What buddy? Uh,

I believe it's going to come to me. So Stan brings me and my buddy, I think it was Steve Brill actually, down to the clubhouse. And there was a, so sure enough, they had one, all the lights are out in the clubhouse. And I just see these, like a flash of flesh every once in a while, kind of goes through a pool of light. And then I look a little closer and the door's kind of open. And sure enough, there's a buttock.

And I'm not sure if a Schwantz goes by or not, but there's dancing going on. There's a lot of bouncing, a lot of pink bouncing. And Stan kicks the door open, and sure enough, there's a disco ball going. I think there was a smoke machine maybe, or maybe that was just steam coming out of the shower. So these are clean bodies that are naked and dancing. Come on. But they're all super happy, and they're all holding one another and bouncing around. Yeah.

in a huddle. I think I have that movie. And somebody, maybe it was you, Clayton, but somebody said, Bateman, get in here. And I was so thrilled that somebody on the Los Angeles Dodgers actually knew my name. I sprinted in.

Now, luckily, I didn't start peeling my clothes off, but I did get grabbed, I'll say, and not a pejorative term, but I partook in the bouncing a little bit. That's hilarious. Clayton, is this a normal thing? That was an interesting year. That was an interesting year. We haven't had too many. You know, you always try to celebrate wins, obviously, because that's hard to do. Clearly.

Now, who was the ringleader in there for the naked bounces? Was it Yasiel? Was it Grandal? Maybe it was Grandal. I think I'd probably go Puig. I think Yasiel was probably the ringleader in that. Puig.

If I had to guess, it was probably the clique. I can't remember exactly. That's a festive room. Do you guys really, you guys don't really party after every single win? No, but just for like a brief minute, you know, turn on the music and you don't have the disco ball anymore. I don't know what happened to that, but that was a great ad. I need to bring that back this year. Who gets to pick the music? Great question. Uh, every clubhouse is different. Um, sometimes you kind of let guys, you know, take turns. Um,

But I would say our clubhouse is pretty, you know, we just kind of let JT, I would say. JT kind of runs it. Timberlake? He does a great job. Mixes it up well. Yeah. He seems like a real, real good dude. He's great. I just do want to know, like, I'm sorry to keep harping on this. I'm trying to picture what your life is when you're not playing baseball. And all I've got is you're running around with kids. That's it. How do you fill the space?

There's no space. I mean, there's no space. I have three kids, so that's like literally what— And that's it's 24-7. Yeah, that's what I'm doing. I get it. Never been busier just running around with three kiddos. But to your point, I will try to figure something out post-baseball. I think that will be healthy to figure that out. Yeah.

Is there any chance that you could become like a locker room choreographer? Yeah, there you go. If that is a job, I'm in on that. I mean, that might be. I've seen you with your headbands on. I mean, you got the headband already. Yeah, yeah. Maybe you just need leg warmers and you're done. Yeah, and my hair's, I kind of like to go ponytail at times. So tank top, ponytail, headband.

No one does a man bun like Clayton. He can get a top knot going there. Good for you. Maybe when I retire, I'm going to come back on if y'all guys will have me. Nothing but wicking material and a top knot. Can't wait. Bateman, you bring up wicking material quite a lot. Do you think you have an issue? He's right.

He's right. I'm unashamed. Wicked. You need to wick it. Clayton, I'm going to tell you this. I had a friend. I mentioned this to the guys before. I had a friend, this girl. I probably, I could say her name. She's not going to care. Rosa Blasi. And Rosa was married to... Oh, shit. I just got served by Rosa Blasi. And she was, she was married. She got married to...

Jim Finn of the Giants, New York Giants. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Football player. And so I was at their wedding in Hawaii and she likes to embarrass me. And there's tons of football players there. And so she walks me up to this guy. She goes, do you know who this is? I'm like, of course I know. It's Peyton Manning. I know Peyton Manning. I'm not an idiot.

And she goes, "I'll give you 10 bucks if you can tell me who he plays for." And I'm like, "I have no idea." I have no idea. But here's the point of the story. I know exactly who Clayton Kershaw is, and I know exactly who you play for, and you're fantastic.

I'm honored. Thank you so much. That's amazing. Clayton, thank you. Thank you very, very, very, very much. Thanks for having me, guys. This was a blast. I appreciate it. Thanks for coming, pal. See you, man. See you soon. Nice to meet you. Bye, buddy. All right. Bye. What a great guest. Oh, my God. How cool. I was so stoked. Can I say that? Am I allowed to say I'm stoked? I'm feeling it. Unless you're in a time machine. Okay. Yeah.

I loved him. I loved him. Clayton Kershaw. I don't know a lot of sports people, but I definitely know who he is. He's a get. He's a major get. Definite get. Probably best pitcher in quite some time, if not forever. And clearly one of the best baseball names ever. I mean, Clayton Kershaw is two hard syllables right there. Do you think I'm a better right-handed pitcher than he is? Yes. Yes.

You think so? Yeah. Thank you. That's a great question. You should have asked him that. I know, I should have. I like to think of the questions after they've gone. You're the best. But what a guest, Jason. Thank you. And I sincerely mean this. I mentioned this to Jason earlier, that I genuinely love when sports people come on because I learn something. That's it. I learn something that I didn't know. And I like when you guys quiz me about shit. I think that's because I'm genuinely interested.

Well, it's interesting. When a guy makes it the way that he has and is so successful at doing that, it's so impressive and fascinating and interesting. How did you become the best pitcher in the world? Yeah, yeah. Anyway, so good. Great. And then we'll talk on the next one. On the flip side. We'll get you on the flip side. They probably don't even flip sides anymore. But guys, I would be remiss if I didn't say bang. Bang.

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