Justin Turner trolling ESPN for Dodgers’ Clayton Kershaw graphic is great
The Worldwide Leader in Sports giving the critics ammo to put them on blast? You don’t say. Haven’t seen ESPN do that in quite some time! (Kidding.)
On Saturday night, Clayton Kershaw set the Los Angeles Dodgers’ all-time franchise record for career strikeouts and was celebrated across the league and sports world for his feat. The legendary lefty passed Don Sutton to cement his legacy as a Dodger, with many more opportunities to come.
But not all outpourings of support are created equal. The pinnacle was an assortment of Dodgers legends partaking in a video message to Kershaw in preparation for the accomplishment. That was some heartfelt stuff every LA fan soaked up.
Rock bottom, though? That was ESPN referring to Kershaw as “The Claw” (???) in a tweet celebrating the feat.
Yes, “The Claw” is now the Dodgers’ all-time strikeout leader. Wait, what? Excuse us? Any real Dodgers fan out there ever refer to Kershaw as that? Or, really, anything other than “Kersh”?
Seems like whoever created this post at ESPN just went on over to Kershaw’s Baseball-Reference page and picked the first nickname listed on his profile and thought nobody would notice. Don’t try to sneak stuff like this by Justin Turner!
Justin Turner trolled ESPN over their graphic for Dodgers’ Clayton Kershaw
Turner took a jab at ESPN in his Instagram post caption by saying “This guy (not the Claw)” and then made sure to hashtag the only two nicknames Dodgers fans are aware of: #GOAT and #Kersh.
The other nicknames on Kershaw’s Baseball-Reference page? Kid K, The Minotaur, and Kersh. We’ve heard of … one of these. What is this, Wikipedia? Anybody in the world can submit something to a very important webpage?
I mean, that tweet was arguably worse than the classic Magic Johnson “captain obvious” message. Gotta be better than that!
ESPN doubling down by leaving this graphic up just goes to show how social media has, in part, ruined sports. The 24/7 nature that has taken over this field has left a lot of room for error and mishaps simply because there’s not enough manpower or those knowledgable to cover every sport at every minute of the day.
Then again, whoever was running ESPN’s social account should’ve known who Kershaw was and been aware “The Claw” isn’t anything he’s been referred to as for as long as we can remember. Whiffing on an obscure NHL record? We can understand that. But CLAYTON KERSHAW and the LOS ANGELES DODGERS for the franchise’s ALL-TIME STRIKEOUT record? Nope. Not gonna have it.