As someone who lives out on the East Coast, I don't get to hear the incredible broadcasting duo of Duane Kuiper and Mike Krukow as often as I'd like. However, thanks to the far-too-short-lived "MVP Baseball" video game series, I was able to grow up listening to them for many memorable moments, such as when legendary players like Jon Dowd would hit the ball high, hit the ball deep, and hit the ball outta here on a regular basis. And though that series may have been discontinued, the infectious broadcasting partnership of Kruk and Kuip is alive and well, with the shortened 2020 season serving as their 30th anniversary in the booth together.
As the old saying goes, time flies when you're having fun, and those 30 years truly have flown by. The duo joined Jayson Stark on his "Starkville" podcast to discuss the roots of their careers as announcers and just how quickly three decades have come and gone.
"Last year was such a whirlwind of emotion and just uncomfortable situations and we didn't know if we were going to do a game from day to day, and the fact that we got 60 in was kind of remarkable," Krukow told Stark. "But along the way, somebody says, 'you know this is your thirtieth anniversary,' and we looked at each other in disbelief and say, 'what?!'
"It didn't feel like 30 years. It felt like three years... We're at a point now where we take every day and we don't take it for granted. We take it as a gift and I guess that's the way you should do it, but you know, it never really felt like 30 years to be honest and we don't have any plans for slowing down."
But let's turn back the clock. Their chemistry is apparent, and over a quarter-century of experience working together will certainly help with that. But this dynamic duo got in some reps before they realized just how far this career path could go, back when they were teammates with the Giants starting in the 1983 season. Stark had heard the rumored story of the two teammates calling games in the dugout together, but asked for confirmation that this wasn't just some myth, as is the case with so many other tales of baseball lore, and was actually the truth.
"Yeah it is. But it had to be the perfect dugout, because you know, we're playing for Frank Robinson, and during the games he's about as much fun as getting a root canal," Kuiper joked. "...The dugouts were really long in Montreal, so we could go down to the other end and we wouldn't do it for very long. We would do it for, you know, an inning and then the more we did it, our teammates started to enjoy it. And now Frank's wondering why everyone's down at the other end of the dugout right?
"So it kind of tipped him off that we were doing something that we probably shouldn't be."
But as fair as their story goes, there weren't any negative consequences for their behavior. It was actually quite the opposite, it seems, considering just how much success they've had — you can look at their large collection of local Emmy awards if you need extra proof. What ultimately led to an award-winning partnership started out as nothing more than some dugout shenanigans, though.
"We knew Kuip was gonna be a broadcaster... but my whole deal, I had no inkling whatsoever that I was gonna go on to broadcasting," Krukow said. "But Kuip had opened up and we would do the real broadcast, so we're in Montreal, or Houston had another dugout that we could do it, we could go all the way down to the end...
"You know, we'd say, 'On tonight is Vern Ruhle, the pitcher for the Houston Astros tonight,' then come in with color, 'Yeah, that guy last night, he was drinking until 4:00 in the morning, I can't believe he can stand up, let alone pitch...' "
They wouldn't spare their teammates any humiliation, though, saying similar things about Giants players if they were involved in the action.
"...We would sort of take it and go back and forth, and we would make it entertaining to our teammates so, in their mind, that became the real broadcast," Krukow said. "And it would be just as caustic and aggravating because we would take out our own teammates. We would put them in that spot, you know, 'Right now it looks like it'll be a pinch hit situation, Kuip.'
"And Kuip would say, 'Yeah, well they go to our bench and they look at Champ Summers, and Champ Summers couldn't stand up last night at 4:00 in the morning, either.' "
It sounds like a whole lot of fun, and it certainly foreshadowed the era of broadcasting greatness that was to come. But is it a coincidence that Krukow turned in his best season as a pro ball player at age 34, in 1986, the year after Kuiper was released? Maybe all that extracurricular dugout activity was taking away from Krukow's performance: he went 30-34 with a 3.97 ERA from 1983 to 1985 before turning in an All-Star 1986 campaign with a 20-9 record and a 3.05 ERA.
No matter... that's an issue for another day. For now, we should just celebrate the duo that has represented Giants baseball for the past three decades, and hopefully many more to come.
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