It is a record for which there is no trophy of even a certificate. In fact, it is so obscure that you will probably never even hear about again after you finish this article. It is, however, one of those records that you can use to impress your friends at a cocktail party or dazzle them with your baseball trivia knowledge. But because it involves Dodgers ace and likely future Hall of Famer Clayton Kershaw, it is a record that is more than worthy of mention.

When Kershaw landed on the disabled list on June 30, 2016 for a mild disk herniation in his lower back – only his second stint on the DL in his nine-year MLB career – it effectively took him out of the 2016 National League Cy Young award race. At the time the 28-year-old Dallas, Texas native was on a historic pace with his 1.79 ERA, 10.8 strikeouts per nine innings and 0.7 walks per nine innings rate and a 49.8 percent ground ball rate through his then MLB-leading 121 innings pitched. He was on pace to obliterate Phil Hughes’ MLB-record 11.63 strikeout-to-walk ratio with his impossible 16.1 K/BB ratio. He had already been named to start the 2016 All-Star Game for the National League but his injury prevented him from making even one pitch in the annual Midsummer Classic.

Even though Kershaw was unable to pitch in the 2016 All-Star Game, he was there with his wife Ellen and their daughter Cali. (Photo credit – Paul Buck)

To this point Kershaw had already won the NL Cy Young award in 2011, 2013 and 2014 and finished second in 2012 (which he should have won) and third in 2015. That’s an MLB-record five consecutive top-three finishes.

There would be no sixth.

However, because two voting members of the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) had given Kershaw a first place vote, he becomes the only pitcher in MLB history to receive first place votes on six consecutive NL Cy Young award ballots – hence that obscure but nonetheless impressive record. Who was it that cast those two first-place votes? That would be L.A. News Group and popular Dodgers beat writer J.P. Hoornstra and FanGraphs national writer David Cameron of Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

If anyone were foolish enough to ask the three-time NL Cy Young award winner and 2014 NL MVP what he thought about this amazing but obscure record they would immediately be what several local writers and bloggers affectionately call “Kershawed” – i.e. they would get a perturbed look and quite possibly an answer that would send them into hiding, never to ask the greatest pitcher on the plant another question again … ever. It’s not that Kershaw would be intentionally demeaning to anyone, it’s just that records, awards and statistics such as this are absolutely meaningless to the star lefty; all but the one that continues to evade him, that is.

“What does it really matter, making the playoffs or coming in last place?” Kershaw said, after the Dodgers were eliminated from postseason play in 2013. “If you don’t win the World Series, it doesn’t really matter … all this other stuff. We had some good moments this year. We put together a good streak there toward the middle. But really, unless you win the whole thing it doesn’t really make a difference.”

There is certainly nothing obscure about that.