The buddy system may have worked on elementary school field trips for bathroom breaks, but as adults, it’s just as important. If you are a sportscaster, that is. You have one guy doing the play by play and another guy doing the color commentary. And in my sports travels, namely in the form of me cozying up with my MLB Extra Innings package, I have learned that Giants fans have it pretty good. Maybe not in the form of actual winning, per se, but that is in part due to the NL West being a weak division. What can I say. But Giants fans have it good because Mike Krukow and Duane Kuiper provide endless good commentary and play by play.
I have heard the other commentators and it makes me want to mute the television. I never want to mute games. Ever. But that was before I heard what else was out there. Now, I think we all know how I feel about the Mets and a certain third basemen of theirs. But I’m not a fan of their commentators (who shall remain nameless except to mention that one of them relinquished his title of World’s Best Mustache to Jason Giambi this year.) I’m not feeling the chemistry there. Disappointing.
Then there’s the other commentators who, half the time, either sound as though they couldn’t catch athlete’s foot, have zero working knowledge of the game, leave uncomfortable dead air gaps in the broadcast, or (and this is my personal favorite) make references to their moments of brilliance at inopportune times. Newsflash: you sound like a donkey trying to talk about a record you hold that has nothing to do with the situation on the field in the bottom of the ninth of a tied ballgame.
Which brings me back to Kruk and Kuip (because if you call them by their first names you clearlyaren’t a true Giants fan). The chemistry between them is freakin awesome. They tell jokes, they rag on themselves and each other and they make watching the Giants fun, which can be, let’s be honest, difficult at times.
They have the best baseball lingo in the biz. I have grown up learning from the best. A couple years ago, when my brother was playing Legion ball up at the Vet’s Home in Yountville, there was a dad whose son was also on the team. Now, if you have ever been to a baseball game with me, you know that I’m not what one might call quiet. Thanks to 25 years of Saturdays spent at some sporting event or another and a couple seasons with the UCSD team, I have quite a repertoire of baseball slang that I’m quite proud of. And this particular father happened to take note of my, shall we say, vocal game-viewing abilities. He came up to me after the double header and said that from now on, he wanted to sit within earshot of me because I was spouting one-liners he’d never heard in all of his baseball playing days. And I was a girl, no less!
So what can I say? I’m a woman who grew up watching baseball the right way. Learning the game from not only playing and interacting and pretty much living and breathing it, but when it wasn’t happening live in front of me, there were Kruk and Kuip to teach a girl how to tell someone to sit down after a weak AB.
And after reading an article about how they were former teammates, their friendship continued and now their families are close, and how they got their start in broadcasting, I’m just plain jealous. They get to go to a job they love everyday, hang out with their best friend and watch baseball–everyday. How are you not jealous of them. Lucky bastards!
So here’s to Kruk and Kuip, for allowing me to un-mute the television during ballgames again and constantly grow my baseball lexicon. I mean, what better mark to leave on the baseball world than teaching someone what it takes to be “eliminated” by sportscasters?
