00:00I don't know where your mind went when I saw this.
00:02Let's be real.
00:03I think, quite frankly, every year for the last few years,
00:06you're kind of wondering, like, you know, is this going to be it?
00:09I mean, Mike's been sort of doing the road games from here,
00:14and, you know, Mike has got some health stuff that's gone on in the past.
00:19I'm not saying that's got anything to do with this.
00:22Mike's, you know, doing just fine.
00:23But the point is, you know, we knew this day was coming,
00:27but you just want to act like it's never coming.
00:30And so it's here, and Mike Kruko will, effective at the end of the year.
00:34I guess we should let everybody know if you don't know.
00:36Mike Kruko is going to retire, effective end of the year.
00:41John told me this morning that Mike just called the broadcast crew last night
00:45and wanted all of them to know directly from him before the announcement went out.
00:50And John told me, said the first thing we tried to do was talk him out of it.
00:54And apparently that didn't work.
00:56So the announcement went out, and so the end of an era is about to be here.
01:03But I meant what I said earlier.
01:05I just don't know if there's ever been anything like this.
01:08When you really go into the intricacies of it,
01:11two best friends who have often been more popular than the team itself.
01:18I don't know if that's out there in professional sports.
01:23Popular broadcasters, iconic ones, sure.
01:27Best friends who you could argue at times have been the face of the franchise.
01:31I don't know that that exists.
01:33No, the closest thing I can think of is Bill King with the East Bay teams
01:36when he was doing the Raiders and the Warriors and the A's.
01:39And this is going back to the 70s.
01:41So many of you may not know or remember what that was like.
01:44But he was the voice of those teams.
01:46But again, he was the voice, and he was iconic with the big beard and the long goatee
01:52and doing the games in shorts, if not less.
01:55And Bill King was so iconic, but it wasn't the same sort of thing you're describing,
01:59which is like we're good friends, we're best friends, and we do this together for almost 40 years.
02:05That is completely unheard of.
02:07And even the piece that you're describing, which is, yeah, think about the Giants in 0-4, 0-5, 0
02:13-6.
02:13You had Bonds, and you weren't that great.
02:15And even in the lean years beyond Bonds before you won titles, like it was Krook and Kipe.
02:21You would tune in for those two, that tandem, no matter what.
02:23No doubt, no doubt.
02:25And, you know, like anything in sports, whenever it gets to be kind of bigger than the final score itself,
02:31that's the good stuff.
02:33That's the dessert, man.
02:34And that's what these guys have been doing every single night.
02:37I was having a conversation with Matt earlier, and my mind went here, too.
02:42And you're certainly all welcome to weigh in on this, 888-957-9570,
02:48in between the iconic broadcasters who will be joining us to talk about an iconic broadcaster.
02:55But Krook and Kipe, to me, maybe the ultimate compliment I could give them,
03:01they're up there for me with the most iconic sports duos in Bay Area history.
03:07And when I started thinking about the other candidates, I went all to players.
03:13My mind went to the Splash Brothers.
03:16Good example.
03:16My mind went to Montana to Rice.
03:19My mind went to Montana to Clark.
03:21My mind goes to Bonds and Kent.
03:25McCovey and Mays.
03:26McCovey and Mays.
03:27Maybe, you know, there's that great poster I had on my wall, the Pacific Sock Exchange.
03:31Oh, my God.
03:32Will and Kevin.
03:33With Will Clark and Kevin Mitchell.
03:34Yes.
03:35You know what I mean?
03:35Like, you know, Canseco and McGuire, the Bash Brothers.
03:39These are the iconic duos that bounced around in my head.
03:43And we're talking about, yes, two dudes who played, but we're not talking about they're playing.
03:48We're talking about them as broadcasters.
03:51That's the regard where we hold Krook and Kipe.
03:55Yeah.
03:55And it's in large part because of the longevity, but also because of the connection to the fan base, especially
04:00in those years where things weren't necessarily going great.
04:04And so when they weren't going great, the one thing you could lean on was those two.
04:08And I think about my early days over at the other station, KNBR, back in 2005, when they were coming
04:14out of the Felipe Alou era.
04:16Ratings weren't great.
04:17The morning show was on kind of on the edge.
04:20And we started having them on every single day.
04:23And at that time, it was a big deal.
04:25And that segment became the highest rated segment outside of the Radnich and Bruno segment that you and I were
04:31both a part of at times.
04:33That was the biggest deal.
04:34And so those guys kind of single handedly lifted that station into at that time relevance.
04:41In a way.
04:43So they made you or they made them.
04:45They definitely made me.
04:47The reason I bring that statement up is that.
04:49So the story I just shared on the crossover about getting to do the podcast with the two of them,
04:54this one episode, one of the stories they shared that sticks in my memory forever is Barry Bonds telling Dwayne
05:05Kuyper, I made you because of the home run call like that.
05:11Imagine Kuyper's home run call.
05:15Yes, he workshopped it.
05:17But why did it become a national entity was because it also coincided with these historical home run runs that
05:26Bonds took all of baseball on.
05:29And so everybody started to hear Kuyper, you know, it is high.
05:34It is far.
05:35It is out of here.
05:37And I remember Kype sharing the story, Crook as well.
05:42And then he was like, yeah, Bonds would tell us, like, I made you.
05:47And I go, how did that conversation go?
05:50Like, why does that even come up?
05:51He goes, well, he would just walk by.
05:53And he would just look at me and go, I made you.
05:56And then just keep walking.
05:58That's how it would go between Barry Bonds and Crook and Kype.
06:02I can listen to stories about how this all came together forever, all day long.
06:07Yeah.
06:07And maybe we will.
06:08I don't know.
06:09I don't know where today is going to go.
06:11But if you all have any stories or anything that you want to share,
06:16and I'm not going to make it just about Crook because I can't say one of the names without the
06:21other.
06:22You can't separate them, right?
06:23It's Crook and Kype.
06:24And next year is going to be hard.
06:25And I know that Kype's brother, Glenn, will be more prominently on the broadcast.
06:29And you'll have either F.P. Santangelo, friend of the program, or, you know, Javi Lopez or Hunter Pence or
06:36who knows who will try to step into that role.
06:38But it will never be the same as Crook and Kype.
06:40And that's where I'm kind of with you.
06:42You can't say one without the other in this conversation.
06:45Yeah.
06:46That's that's.
06:47And it was Buster Olney who tweeted earlier today.
06:51Hey, Hall of Fame, let's evolve.
06:54And, you know, whenever this were to happen, I would settle at this point for them even being willing to
07:01look at this.
07:01But he is advocating that the Hall of Fame take these two in as one.
07:07And I've never heard of a better idea in my entire life.
07:11Crook and Kype.
07:12And they absolutely should go into the Hall together.
07:17And and because I if for no other reason, then how much better would the speech be if it's together?
07:26Right.
07:27That's as it should be.
07:28Yeah.
07:29Baseball Hall of Fame is a pretty rigid thing.
07:31So I don't know if evolve is a great word for them, but it's a hell of an idea.
07:36It is.
07:37And I just was looking at the eligibility of the Ford C Frick Award.
07:41And this year, every, I guess, fourth year, they'd go back to pre wildcard era.
07:46And that's this year.
07:46And so neither Crook nor Kype or any of those guys will be on the ballot for the Ford C
07:52Frick this year.
07:53It's going to be all guys who broadcasted pre 1990.
07:56And then next year, they both will be up for possible election.
08:01And last time, Dwayne Kuyper was a finalist, but Mike Kruko was not.
08:04And the year before that, Crook and Kype both were.
08:07So it's a little bit fickle on who gets to be one of the 10 on the ballot.
08:11And the guy going in this year is Joe Buck.
08:14So Joe Buck is going to get his enshrinement.
08:17I'm not saying he doesn't deserve it, but it feels like this would be a great time for the two
08:20of them to go in together.
08:21Yeah.
08:23Yes, it would be a great time.
08:26Don't waste any time.
08:27It would be a great time.
08:29And if they could just think about evolving a little bit and doing that as a tandem, if it's ever
08:37been appropriate, this is it.
08:39And that's why I mean what I say.
08:41Like, I just don't think there's really been anything like this.
08:43Are we biased?
08:44You damn well better believe we are.
08:46But if there is something out there in the world of sports broadcasting and play-by-play that you can
08:53compare to two best friends doing it every single day as former players and making people laugh and go on
09:02the journey.
09:03Like, I just, I don't know where else that exists in sports broadcasting.
09:06So there's nothing like it.
09:07And the era is coming to an end, but we do get a couple more months of listening to it
09:11and watching it.
09:12So very, very thankful for that.
09:15Our crew can keep you the absolute best.
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