Exclusive | Clayton Kershaw a natural fit in Dodgers broadcasting booth

ATLANTA –– Clayton Kershaw made the familiar walk from the team bus to the clubhouse on Tuesday afternoon, entering a visiting stadium as he’d done thousands of times before.Only this time, the retired left-hander kept on going, passing right by the Dodgers’ locker room at Truist Park en route to –– for what was one day at least –– his new workplace in the broadcast booth high above the field.Eighteen years removed from his big-league debut as a player, Kershaw made his debut as a broadcast color analyst during the Dodgers’ Tuesday night game on SportsNet LA.He wore a suit in place of a jersey.He held a mic instead of a ball.

And with play-by-play man Joe Davis by his side as his new TV battery-mate, he called the full nine innings in a one-day cameo that could, just maybe, portend a new career path for the future Hall of Famer.“Honestly, the whole experience, I really had a good time with it,” Kershaw told the California Post on Wednesday morning.“It was really fun.”Having concluded his iconic playing career with a third World Series last season, the 38-year-old Kershaw is still deciding what his future might hold.He has spent most of this summer being a dad, at home in Texas with his wife, Ellen, and their five kids.

He has also taken up a role as a special assistant to the Dodgers’ front office, helping out this year in player development and scouting-related duties.Broadcasting, however, has been Kershaw’s most visible post-retirement endeavor.He agreed to a deal with NBC Sports this winter to be part of its newly-acquired MLB coverage.He worked multiple Dodgers games earlier this season as a dugout-side commentator on the network’s national broadcasts.But then came this week’s series, in which the Dodgers offered him a chance to be the primary color analyst for their Tuesday-night opener against the Braves in Atlanta.“In order to really know if you enjoy it, you need to be in the booth,” he said.

“So I started thinking...