I liked Clayton Kershaw before I read Molly Knight’s “The Best Team Money Can Buy.”  You liked him too, even if you’ve never heard of him or seen him pitch his Cy Young way for the Los Angeles Dodgers.

But Knight’s book about the team following its bankruptcy and purchase by new owners willing to spend tons of money gives and gives and gives when it comes to endearing Kershaw anecdotes.  Like the fact that despite having a ridiculous amount of guaranteed money he lives in a normal two-story colonial house near the school where he and his wife, Ellen, met as kids.

Knight writes that the day she went to the house to interview Kershaw, he told her that he made a deal with Ellen, who was allowed to get whatever furniture she wanted as long as he got a ping pong table.

“He showed me what Ellen had given him for Christmas: a tiny contraption that launched Ping-Pong balls toward him like a pitching machine so he didn’t need a second person to play.”

That’s my kind of guy right there.  I had no idea that kind of machine existed, but I can’t think of anything more amazing.

Any baseball fan, even those who might have something against the Dodgers, will love this book.  Knight follows the team throughout the 2013 season with incredible detail showing the personalities and inside challenges that you don’t get by just watching a game at the park or on TV.

For example, Kershaw likes to eat a turkey sandwich with cheese, pickles and mustard on days he pitches, which happened to be (minus the pickles) exactly what I had for lunch the day I read that section.  He’s also always early for things.

“He cites his sixteenth birthday as one of the best days of his life, because he got his license,” Knight writes.  “He could finally drive himself somewhere two hours early if he wanted.”

Even more of a man after my own heart.  The best detail to me among a million others from Knight is that Kershaw had a goal of going the entire 2013 season without ever wearing long pants other than obviously on the field and when required by the team while traveling.

Knight has terrific quotes and some astonishing stories that even lifelong baseball fans like me probably don’t know.

Don Mattingly, the Dodgers manager, played his career at first base for the Yankees.  But Knight says that the team considered moving him to second base, at which point the extremely gifted Mattingly would have switched from fielding left handed to being a righty.  That literally made my jaw drop when I read it.

I can do a lot of basic sports stuff right handed thanks to messing around in the backyard with my brothers, but the thought of being able to do even the best of them at a Major League level is insane.

The other star of this book (and life) is Zack Greinke.  He comes off as the most earnest person you could ever meet.  Knight describes the time he was pitching to Ian Kinsler, and after a pitch Kinsler tried to look at the scoreboard for help identifying what Greinke threw.  Except that info wasn’t working that day.

“So when Greinke noticed Kinsler looking around the stadium for help, he began waving his arms at him.  ‘Hey!’ he shouted.  ‘It was a changeup!'”

If that doesn’t make you like a professional athlete, nothing will.  And if you like baseball even 5 percent, go read the other hundred amazing things in this book.