SAN FRANCISCO — Mike Krukow was about three weeks into his media career when longtime Giants broadcaster Hank Greenwald pulled him aside and asked if he was sure it was something he wanted to commit to long term. Greenwald wanted the former MLB pitcher to know what was ahead of him. “If you do this and you become a broadcaster, they’re going to forget you as a player,” he told Krukow. “They’re going to remember you as a broadcaster, and you need to think about that.”
For Krukow, there wasn’t much to consider, but over time he realized that Greenwald was right.
Krukow’s main legacy in the game is his partnership with Duane Kuiper, and while just about every baseball fan in the Bay Area can give you their favorite Kruk-ism or Kuip home run call, it’s a much smaller group that remembers their days of actually wearing orange and black. Both had long big league careers, and Krukow, who will call his final Giants games next week at Oracle Park, had some real highs as a right-handed starter.
Krukow finished with a 3.90 ERA across 369 big league appearances, won 124 games, made an All-Star...