Three-time Cy Young Award winner Clayton Kershaw, of the Los Angeles Dodgers, pitched a rehab assignment game with the Tulsa Drillers last Tuesday, and local baseball fans responded well. The Drillers beat the Springfield Cardinals, 3-2, although Kershaw didn’t get the win.

It was announced Monday morning that Kershaw would be making his second rehab start in Tulsa, after first appearing with Oklahoma City the previous week. Within 18 hours of the announcement, all 8,317 tickets for the game were sold out.

“At one point, our ticket guys were looking at online sales, and saw that a ticket was sold every six seconds over a seven-hour span,” said Drillers president and general manager Mike Melega. “It was pretty cool seeing Tulsa baseball fans react like that. It was on fire all day and never slowed down.”

I think that it’s quite impressive how the local community showed their baseball knowledge and appreciation for the opportunity to see a Major League pitcher of Kershaw’s status. The buzz around the Drillers and ONEOK Field was more exciting than possibly anytime in the Drillers 43-year history.

Fans lined the front row of the stands waiting to get a glimpse, a photo, or possibly an autograph, long before Kershaw emerged from the dugout to begin warming up for the game. Then when he was warming up in the Drillers bullpen, hundreds of people filled in the grassy area behind the bullpen and watched Kershaw go through his pregame routine. As Kershaw left the field following the sixth inning, the fans knew he had completed his stint on the mound and showed their appreciation with a standing ovation.

The local media had an opportunity to chat with Kershaw after the game, and he said he was impressed with what the Drillers have here in Tulsa.

“It’s a fun environment, good place to play, and really nice facilities for a Double-A park,” Kershaw said. “Obviously you don’t ever want to do a rehab start, but if you do, it’s a great spot. The fans were out there tonight. It’s a really nice facility, it really is, everything from the clubhouse, weight room, field, everything’s great, so I enjoyed it.”

Regarding his pitching performance, Kershaw breezed through the first five innings against the Cardinals without much incident, but gave up a pair of solo home runs in the top of the sixth inning. He allowed five hits, had six strike outs and no walks.

“I was a little bit better than my last rehab start, so that was good, to get through six innings, which is big and I got my pitch count up there, so next time I’ll be ready to go,” Kershaw said.

The Drillers went on to beat Springfield, on a bases loaded walk-off single by D.J. Peters in the bottom of the ninth inning. One of the members of the media asked me how this one ranks among other rehab assignments I’ve witnessed with the Drillers over the past 30 years, and I had to stop and think about that.

The first one that came to mind was when Larry Walker of the Colorado Rockies played a couple of games in Tulsa, while rehabbing an injury and before rejoining the big-league club. That was special because I’ve known Walker since his very first day in professional baseball. In fact, I was the first person he met when he arrived at the Buffalo airport for the Expos rookie camp in Jamestown, New York, in June 1985. I picked him up at the airport and gave him a ride to Jamestown. During the next couple weeks, we became good friends.

The one that involved a Major League player of Kershaw’s caliber and created just as much excitement in Tulsa, didn’t involve a player with the Drillers, but rather their opponent. It was in 1991 when Fernando Valenzuela was pitching with the Midland Rock Hounds, not on a rehab assignment, but in an attempt to make it back to the Major Leagues with the Angels organization. What was special about this game was that just a year earlier, Valenzuela pitched a no-hitter for the Dodgers against the St. Louis Cardinals, but the Dodgers released him during spring training in March 1991.

Tulsa baseball fans came out in droves to see this spectacular iconic pitcher with the weird windup and baffling screwball. Drillers Stadium was packed, there wasn’t a seat available anywhere in the stadium. To make room for more fans, the Drillers management got permission from the Texas League to rope off part of the warning track in right field and allow fans to sit and stand there to watch the game. That’s how electric the appearance of “El Toro” was, and it was a night at a Drillers game I won’t ever forget.

The Kershaw game, is now a very close second.