- 1 week ago
Broadcasting icon Bob Costas joins Willard and Dibs to discuss what Mike Krukow has meant to broadcasting, baseball, and the Giants on the day he announces this year will be his last behind the microphone.
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00:00Absolutely one of the best who's ever done it and a wonderful historian for the game and always an honor
00:05for us to talk to him.
00:07So joining us right now on the River Islands guest line right here on Willard & Dibs 95.7 The
00:12Game is none other than the great Bob Costas.
00:15Hello, Bob. Good afternoon. How are you?
00:17Hey, guys. How are you doing?
00:19You know, I guess like you, I'm not going to pretend that I'm feeling it as viscerally as a longtime
00:25Giant fan or resident of the Bay Area would.
00:27But just as a citizen of the game of baseball, it's a sad note about Mike Kruko.
00:33What a wonderful guy. And again, I never pretend in any situation to have more of a connection than I
00:38actually have.
00:39So Kruko and Kuyper and I have crossed paths over the years.
00:44I once had lunch in Milwaukee with Mike Kruko, but I'm not going to pretend to be deeply knowledgeable about
00:53all the ins and outs of that partnership.
00:55But anybody who has spent time around baseball and, you know, I watch games all the time.
01:01You have the package and you're seeing not just the teams, but you're listening to the broadcasters.
01:06And I think it's universal in the broadcasting community that Kruko and Kuyper is one of the great partnerships in
01:14the history of baseball broadcasting.
01:15There's a difference between a great individual broadcaster and a great team where one would be so much less without
01:24the other.
01:25You remove the other. It's more than half that goes away with it.
01:29But obviously Kuyper is very capable and I'm assuming he's going to remain, but there is no replacing that dynamic
01:37and that chemistry.
01:38It was one of the best ever.
01:39It was incredible, Bob. And I think about your early days with Tony Kubik when I was just a kid
01:44and, you know, your start there.
01:46And then Joe Morgan and Bob Euchre. How much was that a big focus of yours to cultivate that sort
01:51of symbiosis to bring to the audience?
01:53Oh, very much so. Although there's a big difference between a national game of the week, different teams each Saturday
02:02or just the postseason, as opposed to the voices of a team.
02:07And when you talk about the Giants, think of the quality over the years.
02:11I mean, historically, you've got Russ Hodges and Lon Simmons.
02:14But in more recent years, John Miller, one of the very best ever young guy like Dave Fleming and then
02:21Kruko and Kuyper.
02:22That is some real quality broadcasting. And it's focused on your team for 162 games, maybe a little bit less
02:31because some games are on ESPN or Sunday nights on on Fox or on the weekend on Fox on NBC.
02:38But you get the idea. It's day in, day out, night in, night out about your team.
02:43And that connection is deeper than the connection fans feel with the local voice of other sports because of the
02:51nature of baseball, the pace, even with the pitch clock of a baseball game and its connection to history.
02:58When you hear John Miller now, it's not just this night's game or this season's story.
03:06It's the story of all the games you ever heard John Miller call.
03:10I mean, the perfect example of that through the years was Vin Scully.
03:13Incomparable, 67 years as the voice of the Brooklyn and then Los Angeles Dodgers.
03:18And I always used to say when people asked me, his broadcasts are simultaneously present and nostalgic.
03:25It's about tonight's game and it's about every game that you ever cared about in the whole history through 2016
03:31of the Los Angeles Dodgers because he was with them when they arrived in 1958, just as the Giants arrived
03:37in San Francisco at the same time.
03:39So that relationship between a local baseball announcer, especially if they're good, and their audience, you can't compare it no
03:48matter how good the national broadcaster is.
03:50It's apples and oranges.
03:51Bob, I love listening to you talk about tandems as opposed to individuals.
03:57And I was thinking earlier, I'm trying to compare these two to something else in sports.
04:02And I can't even sort of find it because there's two things that I think make this even more special,
04:08which is A, they are best friends.
04:11And B, at times, they have actually been the most popular Giants, even more popular than the players.
04:20Can you think of anything else around the world of professional sports where that dynamic has existed?
04:28I can think of great booths like Harry Carey in his prime before he became beloved for different reasons, but
04:35he wasn't as technically good as he had been in St. Louis.
04:38Harry Carey and Jack Buck were in the same booth in St. Louis.
04:42Red Barber and Mel Allen, after Red left the Brooklyn Dodgers, were in the same booth with the Yankees.
04:48But it wasn't the same kind of thing because they were just dividing up the play-by-play.
04:52They were all Hall of Fame great, but that connection isn't the same.
04:57Now, when I hang up, I'm going to think of about a half dozen good examples.
05:02And you guys will as well, but there's a difference.
05:05You know, again, different sport and also, as I've said, difference between national and local.
05:10But think of Summerall and Madden, right?
05:13Now, Al Michaels in his prime was great with anybody, and he was great with Madden.
05:18But Summerall and Madden worked, especially because Pat was so terse in a good way.
05:26He had a dramatic voice, but he put captions.
05:30You know, he was influenced by Ray Scott, the longtime announcer for the Green Bay Packers, whose calls would be,
05:38Star, Dowler, touchdown, Green Bay.
05:42You know, and so Summerall, with that resonant voice and with the equity that he had with the audience,
05:48then along comes Madden.
05:50Summerall didn't have to adjust.
05:51Summerall's natural style allowed Madden all the room he needed for all his booms and all that other kind of
05:58stuff.
05:59They were a perfect combination.
06:01I'm sure there have been others that we can think of where that relationship works in baseball,
06:07and I'm going to kick myself when I think of a half dozen of them as soon as I hang
06:10up.
06:11Is part of this, too, like the timing of the era?
06:14Because the Summerall Madden one is perfect because that was kind of the beginning of the Telestrator,
06:18and, you know, Madden can do all his drawings.
06:20And the Krook and Kipe thing kind of came at the dawn of local cable television
06:25where you could stretch out and get to know your audience and do more crowd shots.
06:29Is the timing a part of the success of Krook and Kipe?
06:32Oh, sure it is.
06:33Plus, there was a time when television was secondary to radio,
06:40and who knows how good Krook and Kipe might have been had they been on the radio,
06:45but they were primarily on television.
06:47So you didn't have to describe everything.
06:50You could put a caption beneath those pictures or tell a story or make an observation about those pictures.
06:55Or now here's a shot of a little kid with ice cream all over his face at his first baseball
07:00game.
07:00You know, Scully loved that stuff.
07:02He put some story to that.
07:05But, you know, Krook and Kipe were great about the atmosphere at the ballpark,
07:10not just commenting about the game.
07:12It's like, what's the atmosphere at the ballpark?
07:14And that's a big part of baseball because not every game is a spectacle.
07:18It's not like a football game.
07:20Not every game is a be-all and end-all.
07:22How could it possibly be when you play 162?
07:25The great Bob Costas is with us on Withered and Dibs 95.7 The Game.
07:29Bob, I know another thing we wanted to talk to you about is kind of the way you've watched through
07:34the years
07:35broadcasters, especially working with a team, sort of handle taking the fan on the journey of the ups and downs.
07:42And I think those who get in the mind of a fan who doesn't necessarily defend everything the team does,
07:49like they go on that emotional up and down with you.
07:53And I wonder what your view is on what you've seen through the years, like how that's evolved,
07:59but also maybe how it applies to Krook and Kipe, who will rub their temples during a game sometimes, you
08:07know?
08:07Yeah.
08:08Well, of course, they have credibility because they each played the game at the major league level.
08:12So their commentary of a certain kind would matter more than a career announcer,
08:19no matter how good that career announcer is, because they've got the playing cred.
08:24And they've also got all the equity built up over the years, not just because their partnership was so good,
08:29but because of their presence.
08:31You know, they're part of the soundtrack of your spring, summer, and early fall.
08:35Every year, year in, year out, stretching back to decades.
08:40So, you know, they had all of that going for them.
08:44You know, an interesting thing is that local fans, especially in baseball,
08:50always think that their announcer is better than whoever the network announcer is.
08:56And they're entitled to that because they don't understand.
08:59They just, it's like one guy, one guy's making an omelet and the other guy's making a souffle,
09:06but you expect it to be the same thing.
09:08It's not the same thing.
09:10You know, it's just not.
09:11And they always think that Joe Buck and I laugh about this all the time.
09:16They are convinced people hearing exactly the same words of exactly the same broadcast on a national broadcast,
09:23especially in the playoffs, fans of both teams are convinced that the network announcer
09:28is shortchanging their team, unfair to their team, rooting for the other team,
09:32and fans who are just watching the game and don't have an intense rooting interest
09:36don't think a thing of it.
09:38And you know why?
09:39Because it isn't true.
09:40But you can't, even some of the, people could have a PhD.
09:44When it comes to their team, they get irrational.
09:47You know, fan is short for fanatic.
09:49It isn't true.
09:51But the local announcer has, as I said, they have credibility and connection.
09:57And so, as long as it's not vicious or unfair,
10:01if Kruko and Kuyper are critical of the Giants,
10:05either over the course of a disappointing season or in a given game,
10:09they have, they've built up the credibility to do that.
10:12And they have, obviously, the cachet.
10:14And the Joe Buck thing is interesting because Giants fans think that he hates the Giants.
10:18Yeah.
10:19Until you go back and listen to the Ishikawa home run,
10:21which happened against his beloved Cardinals,
10:23and Joe loses his mind over that.
10:26Bob, I wanted to just ask you about the future of broadcasting.
10:29Have we gotten to a spot where you're not going to get another Kruk and Kite
10:32because of the Amazonification and all of the cable and the YouTube
10:37and all of the diversifying of media?
10:39Are they going to be going the way of the Dodo Bird, a tandem like this?
10:43I hope it doesn't happen in my lifetime.
10:46And, of course, my lifetime now has more behind it than in front of it.
10:49So I think the old school can hang on until I'm gone, at the very least.
10:55But one of the things that's happened is attention spans have been shortened.
11:02And you have a lot of people who are digesting bits of games
11:07and also, therefore, the broadcast of the games in small nuggets.
11:12And you can almost tell when some of these announcers are calling the game,
11:16they're not calling it solely within the context of that moment,
11:21which had all the innings that preceded it before the big moment at the end
11:25and has something that follows it.
11:27They're thinking, how will this call play on the Internet?
11:30And you can't have a guy losing his mind on a home run in the fourth inning
11:35on a Tuesday night in July, because where does he have to go
11:40if he's gone all the way to the top in terms of volume and excitement?
11:44What happens in the seventh game of the World Series?
11:47Where does he go then?
11:49Vin Scully captured every moment.
11:51John Miller captured every moment wonderfully without screaming and yelling.
11:55But there are a lot of young people now who think that the best call
11:59is automatically the most over-the-top and hysterical call.
12:02And that is just one more small indication of the ongoing decline of Western civilization.
12:10Bob Costas is with us.
12:12Bob, when you just said that your life has a lot more behind it than in front of it,
12:17I'm not going to handicap.
12:19Well, I looked it up, and I'm like, no.
12:22You're turning 75 next year?
12:25I refuse to believe it.
12:28Three-quarter century, Mark.
12:30What are you going to do?
12:30Oh, my gosh.
12:31Speak to the alternative, as people say.
12:33Well, it's a good question.
12:34What are you going to do?
12:3575, that deserves a celebration.
12:37What are you going to do?
12:39Well, you know, NBC has been nice enough to bring me back
12:42in a very appropriate emeritus role.
12:44I did a few little things with the NBA returning,
12:47and during this baseball season, a few of the Sunday night games I've been part of,
12:52because I'm the bridge between the then and the now.
12:56I'm the only person that was there in 2000 when they last had baseball,
13:00and in 2002 when they last had the NBA.
13:04I mean, Marv Albert is still around, but Marv's a decade or so older than I am.
13:08So I was the person that could pass the baton that way
13:12and throw in a few notes here and there, hopefully grace notes,
13:16that remind people of the NBA in the 90s or the heyday of baseball on NBC.
13:22And so I hope I've been able to contribute in that way in small doses.
13:27And I'll also be a contributor at the Olympic Games in 28,
13:32because it's a domestic Olympics.
13:34And people still associate me to some extent with all the Olympics that I hosted for NBC.
13:39And I've got a great relationship with Mike Tirico.
13:41He won the first Bob Costas scholarship at Syracuse University in 1987.
13:47And he still tells the story of how I came up to Syracuse to meet him,
13:50because according to him, I'd forgotten I said this,
13:53I wanted to make sure the first recipient wasn't a knucklehead.
13:56And it turns out not only is he not a knucklehead,
13:58he's become one of the great all-around sportscasters in network history.
14:02Yeah, I mean, you're giving me all the feels right now.
14:05You had me thinking Matty Gukas and Steve Snapper-Jones for just a hot second there,
14:09the NBA stuff.
14:11But the Syracuse, Greg Papa obviously works in our market,
14:14and he's fighting for his life currently right now.
14:17And he was a little bit before Mike Tirico in terms of your time at Syracuse.
14:23But what is it about Syracuse that churns out so many of you great broadcasters?
14:27You know, I think once a reputation is established, then it just builds on itself.
14:33There's a guy working on a book now.
14:35He's spoken with many of us.
14:37The title of the book is Sportscaster U.
14:39And it's about Syracuse turning out now hundreds of accomplished sports broadcasters.
14:45It started with Marty Glickman, who was Jesse Owens' teammate on the 1936 Olympic team
14:51and played basketball and football as well as running track at Syracuse.
14:54And he became really the first true athlete turned broadcaster,
14:58not analyst or color man, but play-by-play man and a great one.
15:02And then Marv Albert followed him and Dick Stockton followed him.
15:06And when I got there in the early 70s, there were a handful, maybe five or six.
15:10But now I can't even keep track of how many there are.
15:14There was a moment when Tirico was in Milan for the Winter Olympics,
15:18and I was filling in, bringing the NBA on the air.
15:22So he threw it to me.
15:25I threw it to Ahmed Farid, who was doing part of the pregame show,
15:29and then he passed it off for the call of the game to Noah Eagle.
15:32Around the horn, all four of us Syracuse brothers.
15:36Amazing.
15:37Bob Costas with us here on 95.7 The Game.
15:40Bob, you said at the beginning that you and Mike Kruko had lunch in Milwaukee one time.
15:45Did I hear that right?
15:46What brought that about?
15:49Well, my son, who's now 40 years old and produces games for the Major League Baseball Network,
15:54he's going to do the Field of Dreams game in a week or so in Iowa.
15:59But when he was a little kid and when some of the ballparks were on their last moments,
16:05I made sure that I took him to those ballparks.
16:07So we went to Tiger Stadium, I think, in 1999 before they went off to Comerica Park.
16:14And we went to County Stadium.
16:17I don't know if they were still calling it County Stadium.
16:20But we went to County Stadium in 2000.
16:23Same idea.
16:24You know, and Euchre and I are pals.
16:26So we spent a weekend, my son and I, and they were playing the Giants.
16:30So the Giants are staying at the same hotel.
16:33So I just happened to walk into the restaurant and Kruko was sitting there.
16:36So we sat down and talked for a while.
16:38Perfect.
16:39What did you order?
16:42You know, I honestly don't remember.
16:43I wouldn't think you did.
16:44Yeah, that was, I just thought I'd give that a whirl.
16:47But it would actually, you know, I pride myself on my memory, which is not as sharp as it once
16:54was.
16:54Still pretty good.
16:55But if I actually remembered that and it wasn't like, you know, you're proposing to your wife
17:00or it's, you know, dinner at the White House or something.
17:05If I actually remembered that, that would be weird.
17:08That would be a little much.
17:09Yeah.
17:09And you're such an honest person that you didn't just say club sandwich.
17:13Like you could have just done that, but you didn't.
17:16I could have.
17:16I could have.
17:17Yeah.
17:17Yeah.
17:18Hey, Bob.
17:19You know, in Milwaukee, it could have been the bratwurst.
17:22It could have been the bratwurst.
17:23It should have been if it wasn't.
17:24But indeed.
17:26Hey, Bob, what a thrill for us.
17:28And thank you so much for taking some time out of your day to talk to us.
17:33Thank you, guys.
17:34I hope the remainder of the season for Mike Kruko is something he feels good about, that
17:39he can tie a ribbon around it and get all the appreciation from the fans and from his
17:44broadcasting colleagues that he deserves.
17:46Well, he's the lead story now when you're, you know, 18 or 19 games under 500.
17:51That's for sure.
17:52Right, right.
17:53Yeah, that's a challenge, by the way, for the local broadcaster.
17:56It's easier to broadcast a good team than it is to a team that's struggling.
18:00Absolutely.
18:01Bob, thank you so much.
18:03We hope to do it again.
18:04Thank you, guys.
18:05Take care.
18:05Okay.
18:06Bob Costas with us here on Willard and Dibs sharing stories and perspective as Mike Kruko
18:11announces that he will retire at the end of the year.
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