Stories of High Strangeness by Marc Shapiro

Kluber had reportedly grown frustrated with his stalled contract negotiations, and may have had one too many egg nogs before leaving this message on Mark Shapiro’s voicemail: The great Indians writer and historian Terry Pluto may have be the first to uncover the darkness in Kluber when he broke the story of Corey calling Mark Shapiro on Christmas Eve of 2014. There is a certain darkness that follows Kluber, though he rarely shows it. It is well known that Corey Kluber rarely allows himself to break into a smile. Kluber’s joyless expression worked for a mechanical magazine, but when Sports Illustrated decided to use the 2014 Cy Young winner on its MLB Preview cover, they reportedly hired 15 graphic artists from Singapore and kept them on retainer for over a month to craft a smile that would look believable on the pitcher’s face. Kluber’s soul-shaking, knee-buckling stare has become so well-known that Popular Mechanics magazine put him on its cover, playing on his Klubot moniker.

He had been bitten by the drop of that curve and was just another strikeout victim. The umpire yelled strike as if to wake him and all Paul could do was bob up and down. Kluber threw a pitch so nasty that Paul Goldschmidt was so frozen that I thought he was asleep. Last Friday, Kluber went up against the Arizona Diamondbacks. All the pounding and hollering does not stop Kluber from ripping those hitters to pieces. And then, fans hear the terrible high pitch scream of frustration as the grass gets covered in the wood of a bat splintered over a hitter’s knee. When he comes at a hitter, he does not even seem alive until the pitch bites and those black eyes roll over white.

When he’s on the mound, Kluber has lifeless, black eyes, like a doll’s. He looks straight into the batter’s eyes. From the very first pitch, Corey Kluber is locked in.

Stories of High Strangeness by Marc Shapiro