As Dodgers players packed in for Clayton Kershaw’s retirement news conference last Thursday, Freddie Freeman waved the Kershaw family to a row of seats at the front of the room.
He wanted Kershaw’s wife, Ellen, and their four kids in front of the pitcher right when he sat down at the dais at Dodger Stadium.
How else, Freeman joked, could they get the future Hall of Famer to cry?
Turned out, in a 14-minute address announcing his retirement from baseball at the end of this season, Kershaw did get choked up from behind the mic.