Legendary MLB broadcasting duo reveals when they plan to retire
Longtime Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Frank Fitzpatrick was charged with the difficult task of filing the final dispatch from Richie Ashburn’s broadcasting career on Sept. 10, 1997: “Mr. Ashburn, the Hall of Famer whose half-century as a Phillies outfielder and wry color commentator stretched from Curt Simmons to Curt Schilling, died early yesterday in a New York hotel only hours after working a Phillies-Mets game at Shea Stadium.”
Ashburn and his play-by-play partner, Ford C. Frick Award winner Harry Kalas, worked 27 seasons together in the Philadelphia Phillies’ broadcast booth (1971-97). Their tenure was referenced this week on the latest episode of the Starkville podcast by Mike Krukow, the San Francisco Giants’ longtime television commentator.
Krukow and his longtime broadcast partner, Duane Kuiper, were asked by host Jayson Stark how long they plan to keep working.
“I’ll do it as long as Mike does it,” Kuiper said. “For me, it’s all about my relationship with him. As long as he goes, that’s how far I’ll go.”
“You guys both know Harry Kalas and Richie Ashburn,” Krukow said. “In 1982 with the Phillies, I got to know them really well. …. The way they ended their careers is the way we want to do it.”
To spell out the morbid implication: Krukow, 73, and Kuiper, 74, are going to keep working together until one of them dies.
Already, the pair would not be out of place in Cooperstown themselves. “Kruk” and “Kuip” have called every Giants season together since 1994.
The two former players have a chemistry in the booth that has transcended Krukow’s diagnosis of inclusion-body myositis, a degenerative muscle disease. In recent years, Krukow has called Giants road games remotely from San Francisco while Kuiper works the booth in person.