He came to town as a quiet Texas kid charged with carrying Hollywood’s team.
For 18 years, in greatness and in grief, through sweet dreams and bitter despair, he did exactly that.
He was splendid. He was awful. He set records. He ruined seasons. He was passionately embraced. He was loudly booed.
For 18 years, Clayton Kershaw pitched through the gamut of emotions as both a hero and a villain, moments of euphoria addled with spells of despair, picturesque summers disappearing into the wicked wilds of October.
But carry the Dodgers, he did, with courage and dignity and grace, and in the end, he will be surrounded only by love, a deep and abiding roar of affection from a city to a simple man who willed himself into legend.