It’ll be an emotional month for the San Francisco Giants family as one of their family members will be leaving. The Giants iconic voice Mike Krukow will officially sign off on Sept. 27, the team’s final game of the season. ‘Kruk and Kuip’ have been the voices and faces of the Giants for more than 40 years. Raj Mathai sat down with Kruk.
We’ve known ‘Kruk and Kuip’ as players, broadcasters and always best friends. Mike Krukow says telling Duane he was retiring was one of the hardest things he’s ever had to do.
Krukow says, “We’ve been through so much life together. I didn’t know if there was a perfect time or a perfect place …. and then in the end, it was just in the lunchroom, the two of us sitting there and I said, I think I’m done. He goes, no, you’re not. No, you are not, stop it. And I nodded my head, I think I am.”
He goes on to say, “it got quiet. I was rolling down the hallway. He just put his arm on my shoulder. We didn’t say anything. We just walked in silence in the booth and sat down and got ready to do another game.”
They are family in the NBC Sports Bay Area broadcast booth. Their passion for the game and friendship will never go away. But, Krukow says his health makes it unsafe to be doing the job. The 74-year-old suffers from inclusion body myositis, a degenerative muscle disease that’s forced him in a wheelchair.
“I don’t want to leave and mother nature has her way … Once I announced the retirement, people feel an urgency to come to me and tell me thank you and let them know how much I meant to them. Do you know how powerful that is?” says Krukow.
Mike Krukow will sign off on Sept. 27. The San Francisco Giants final game of the season against the LA Dodgers will be the final game of his hall of fame career.
When we asked him what his message to the fans will be on that last day, Krukow told us he’ll tell people he’s happy and in a good place.
“As sad as it is to end what has been the pride of not just myself, but my family. I’m going to tell them just how much they mean to me and my family on the last day. I don’t know if you can really convey it in words, but it will be conveyed in emotion, that I can guarantee.”