LOS ANGELES — Last year, in the middle of a World Series celebration he had spent two decades dreaming about, Clayton Kershaw took the mic at Dodger Stadium and made a declaration.

“I love you guys, thank you!” he shouted to an adoring Chavez Ravine crowd.

“Dodger for life!”

On Thursday, that distinction was cemented.

After 18 seasons, three Cy Young Awards, an MVP, more than 3,000 strikeouts and two World Series titles, Kershaw announced he will retire from Major League Baseball at the end of this year — starting and finishing his career in a Dodgers uniform.

“I’m at peace with it,” Kershaw said before Thursday’s game. “I think it’s the right time and it’s been such a fun year, it’s been such a blast.”

Kershaw’s announcement, which initially came in a press release from the team, preceded what could now be his final Dodger Stadium start scheduled for Friday night.

That game will mark his 247th time taking the bump at the only ballpark he has ever called home. And though manager Dave Roberts said he envisions Kershaw having a role on the Dodgers’ postseason roster, when the 37-year-old will make one more attempt at one more championship, it could still very well be his last outing at Chavez Ravine.

“I’ve just never been around a greater competitor,” said Roberts, Kershaw’s manager for the last decade. “Very accountable. Very consistent. And he’s made me better. I think that we’ve both grown together. So I feel fortunate to have been able to manage him and be around him for 10 years. And he’s earned this right to walk away at his choosing.”

After 222 wins, more than 2,800 innings, and a career 2.54 ERA, Kershaw’s countdown to Cooperstown will begin this winter.

After serving as the face of the franchise during one of the most successful runs in club history, the book will finally be closing on his illustrious career.

Kershaw’s retirement had been a long time coming. Over each of the past four offseasons, he contemplated whether or not to walk away from the game. An 11-time All-Star and five-time ERA champion, he long ago ensured his spot as a future Hall of Fame pitcher. As the franchise’s all-time strikeout leader, his place in club lore had already been enshrined.

Yet he never lost his desire to play.

Despite an elbow injury at the end of the 2021 season, a shoulder surgery after the 2023 campaign, and foot and knee procedures this past offseason, he came back to continue his Dodgers tenure — never ready to give up another title chase.

This year, he has authored the kind of renaissance season that once felt behind him. He is 10-2 in 20 starts with a 3.53 ERA, succeeding despite diminished fastball velocity and a decline in overall stuff. He has been an integral member of a first-place Dodgers team, ever effective with his trademark fastball-slider-curveball mix. Yet, even with one more postseason run lying ahead, he decided his time in baseball was finally up, with his wife Ellen expecting the family’s fifth child.

Kerhsaw began informing Roberts and some teammates of his decision over the last month, and sent a text in a roster-wide group chat on Thursday morning that he would publicly announce his decision.

“Knowing Clayton, I thought he would not even tell anybody and just retire,” first baseman and fellow veteran star Freddie Freeman joked. “But I’m glad he did. So the fans, and not only Dodger fans, but all baseball fans, can enjoy his last start here at Dodger Stadium in the regular season tomorrow. I mean, it’s just a heck of a career. … And now he gets to retire on his own terms.”

Originally drafted seventh overall by the Dodgers out of Highland Park High School in Texas in 2006, Kershaw has spent the entirety of his professional life in the organization, going from top prospect to young sensation to Cy Young winner to pitcher of his generation.

He made his MLB debut in 2008, and broke out as a star the following year. By 2011, he had earned his first All-Star selection, his first ERA title and his first Cy Young Award. The accolades would keep coming after that — with Kershaw leading the majors in ERA each season from 2011 to 2014, winning two more Cy Youngs in 2013 and 2014, and becoming only the 22nd pitcher to ever win MVP honors with his 21-3, 1.77-ERA season in that historic 2014 campaign (which also included his only no-hitter against the Colorado Rockies that June).

“He’s not [only] a Dodger legend, he’s a baseball legend, forever,” Freeman said. “The greatest pitcher of our generation.”

The back half of Kershaw’s career was plagued by injuries, starting with a bad back that sidelined him for part of 2016.

Still, he earned another ERA title in 2017 while helping the Dodgers win their first pennant in 29 years. He received the first of his four All-Star selections past the age of 30 in 2019. He had a resurgent performance in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, going 6-2 in the regular season with a 2.16 ERA before finally experiencing a World Series title.

Up to that point, the postseason was the only area were Kershaw struggled. In 32 playoff outings from 2008 to 2019, he was 9-11 with a 4.43 ERA. Those mediocre numbers were underscored by excruciating collapses against the St. Louis Cardinals in 2013 and 2014, the Houston Astros in 2017 and Washington Nationals in 2019. But they also overshadowed his willingness to take the ball on short rest, in relief appearances out of the bullpen and when his body was worn down from 200-plus-inning regular seasons by the time the playoffs began.

“He never said no, he never said my arm hurts, he never said I need a little bit more time,” said third baseman and longtime teammate Max Muncy. “It was, ‘Whatever this team needs to get over the hump, I’m gonna do it.’ You’re talking about one of the best pitchers of all time, and for him to be that unselfish when it came to this team, it’s pretty ridiculous.”

In 2020, Kershaw vanquished such demons, making five starts and going 4-1 with a 2.93 ERA in the Dodgers’ first victorious World Series run since 1988. The title, Kershaw has said since, meant more than even he could have ever imagined.

“I think having that [World Series] definitely started letting me relax a little bit more,” Kershaw said in 2023. “I didn’t realize I had been carrying that weight that much.”

And once he won it once, the notoriously competitive left-hander craved to do it again.

That’s why, even as his body has continued to break down in recent years, Kershaw kept coming back every spring. He believed, when healthy, he could still contribute to a World Series contender. And despite numerous free-agent flirtations with his hometown Texas Rangers, he always saw the Dodgers as the team he was meant to stay with.

“His heart has always been here with this city, with this organization,” Roberts said. “I do know, in speaking to him, how important that has been to him. To be a mainstay. To play for one team.”

It made last year’s World Series title a sentimental one for the iconic southpaw. Kershaw was a limited participant, making only seven starts in the regular season before missing the playoffs with his foot and knee problems. But he relished in the celebration, especially the title-winning parade that the 2020 team had been denied by the COVID-19 pandemic.

He knew then that he would be a Dodger for life.

On Thursday, it finally became official.

After 18 seasons, Clayton Kershaw is calling it a career.

“I know it’s reality, but I still don’t know that I believe it,” Muncy said. “For as long as I’ve been here, it’s been 22.”

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