Hall of Fame manager Joe Torre only spent three years at the helm with the Dodgers. In his first season, he was able to manage the team to their first NL Championship Series in 20 years. But apparently, a young lefty named Clayton Kershaw wasn't his biggest fan.
Torre said in an interview this week that Kershaw was not pleased with him at first.
“He didn’t like me very much early on because I sent him to the minor leagues for one stint after he was up. He was angry at that.”
Kershaw made his major league debut on May 25, 2008, and it resulted in a 4-3 victory over the St.Louis Cardinals. In that start, he threw six innings and gave up only two runs while striking out seven batters. It turned out to be his only quality start in his first eight appearances with the team.
In mid-July, the Dodgers sent Kershaw back down to Double-A after he posted a disappointing 4.42 ERA but he was only there for a few weeks. The rest, as they say, is history.
Torre, who is now a Special Assistant to the Commissioner, added that several organizations attempted and failed to acquire the future ace.
“There were a lot of organizations that wanted to trade for Kershaw for significant players. The GM at the time, Ned Colletti, said ‘no,no,no’. Once I saw Kershaw and his stuff and basically his stature and just the way he would dare people…I could see why they wanted to hold him back.”
Unfortunately, however, he didn't reveal any names. For the time being, one may only speculate as to what players were offered to Colletti for a young Clayton Kershaw.
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