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Daily Orange alumnus Andy McCullough (‘09) has covered Major League Baseball daily for over a decade, where he gained expertise on the Los Angeles Dodgers and the state of starting pitchers. This culminated in the recent release of his first book, “The Last of His Kind.”

McCullough, formerly a writer at the Los Angeles Times and now at The Athletic, examined the career of Los Angeles Dodgers star pitcher Clayton Kershaw and the burden it took for the future Hall of Famer to reach his unique level of greatness.

McCullough spoke to The Daily Orange to break down his process of writing his first book and the story behind Kershaw’s illustrious career.

The Daily Orange: How did you decide this was a topic you wanted to pursue and make into a book?

Andy McCullough:

I covered the Dodgers for several years and during that time I wrote a lot about Clayton Kershaw. He’s obviously the best pitcher in baseball for a very long time and a central figure in modern baseball. I covered a lot of tumultuous postseason outings that he went through and after they (Dodgers) won in 2020, it felt like a kind of end to that sort of narrative. But during the subsequent couple years, I was working on some other projects and trying to do some stuff.

Then, in the fall of 2021, I had some conversations with (Kershaw) where he seemed a little bit more open and reflective about the course of his career. I thought that maybe he might be open to participating in a book-length project and I approached him in May of 2022. I told him that I wanted to do the definitive work on his time as a Dodger and I wanted him to participate in it, but I was going to try and pursue it, whether he wanted to be a part of it or not.

I told him the book would be a lot better if he was part of it and he was like, ‘Yeah, sure. Sounds good.’ It was a pretty short conversation, about five to 10 minutes, and he said he would check with his wife, Ellen, to make sure the family was on board with it. And so I started reporting around it from there and then he and I kind of sat down to talk in earnest after the 2022 season in that winter.

The D.O.: What do you hope readers take away from the book about Kershaw’s legacy, but also beyond that?

A.M.:

Number one, I hope they enjoy reading it. I hope they have fun reading it because I had a really good time putting it together.

One of the things that a lot of people in baseball talk about is the decline of the starting pitcher and the way that pitchers are no longer trained to be the Bob Gibson or Nolan Ryan figures that they were 50-60 years ago. Part of this book is charting why Kershaw is going to probably be the last of those to ever come around. In part, the game has gotten so good that even the best of their generation, a player who a lot of people in baseball now believe is the best pitcher ever, is not able to meet those standards just because the game has gotten that much harder. The teams are so much smarter, the hitters have so much more information and are more dangerous.

And so, the normal standard that Kershaw held himself to is something that literally no other pitcher in the sport is expected to do anymore. Part of the reason why is because of what it’s done to him physically and seeing just the limitations of it by seeing the best of his class, the best of his generation, bumping up against them.

Clayton Kershaw graces the front cover of “The Last of His Kind.” Andy McCullough’s first book gives a behind-the-scenes look of the burden Kershaw faced daily to achieve greatness. Courtesy of Hachette Book Group

The D.O.: This was your first book, so what was it like writing something of this size?

A.M.:

It was awesome. I loved it. I really found it incredibly fulfilling. It was certainly stressful at times, but I liked the challenge of trying to do it because I feel like I’ve been doing this for 15 years now and I know how to write a good game story. That doesn’t provide a ton of fulfillment anymore. I still enjoy it, but it doesn’t feel like a challenge.

This was a challenge but I appreciate the scope of it. It was fun trying to move a character through time, almost. You know who this person is based on your reporting and you know from all the time you spent around them, and now you need to get it on a page and make it come to life, almost.

The D.O.: How do you think The D.O. shaped you as a reporter and writer to create a project like this?

A.M.:

The Daily Orange was such an important incubator for me and a place that I don’t know if I would be doing journalism if I had gone to another school. Just because I don’t know if I would have found a community and a place that was so competitive and energetic and just was an incredible place to try and fail doing journalism.

Editor’s note: Some questions and answers have been edited for clarity and brevity.

Published on May 9, 2024 at 12:49 am

Contact Aiden at: amstepan@syr.edu | @AidenStepansky