Mike Krukow is walking away. The longtime San Francisco Giants broadcaster announced Thursday that he will retire at the end of the 2026 MLB season, closing out a 36-year run in the booth that made him one of the most beloved voices in baseball.
Krukow, 74, was a Giants pitcher from 1983 to 1989 before moving straight into the broadcast booth in 1990. He has spent almost every game of the last three-plus decades alongside partner Duane Kuiper, forming the longest-running broadcast duo in Major League Baseball. Their chemistry became the soundtrack of Giants baseball for two generations of Bay Area fans.
The retirement is a health decision. Krukow was diagnosed nine years ago with inclusion-body myositis, a progressive muscle disorder that has slowly limited his mobility. He reduced his workload after the diagnosis, but continued calling home games and select road trips whenever his body allowed. Now he is stepping away completely.
“Our time together has been a gift,” Krukow said in his statement, which is exactly the kind of understated, warm delivery that made him such a fixture in the Bay Area.
The Giants plan to honor Krukow during their regular-season finale against the Dodgers on September 27 at Oracle Park. Expect it to be an emotional afternoon. Krukow is not just a broadcaster to Giants fans. He is a link to the Roger Craig era, to the earthquake World Series, to the three championship runs, to every big moment the franchise has had in the last 36 years.
What made Krukow special was that he called games the way a former player talks about them at the bar, not the way a network suit thinks broadcasts should sound. He explained pitch sequencing without making it feel like homework. He got excited without being fake. He was funny without trying to be a comedian. Kuiper set him up, and Krukow always delivered.
His phrases became part of the fan vocabulary. “Grab some pine, meat.” “Ownage.” The Krukow home run call. You did not have to explain any of it to a Giants fan.
The bigger question now is what happens to the broadcast. Kuiper is not going anywhere yet, but half of a legendary partnership is stepping down. Whoever the Giants slot into that seat is not replacing Krukow. That job cannot be replaced. They are just taking over the microphone.
Krukow leaves behind a template for how a former player can become a broadcaster who actually adds to the game instead of talking over it. His work in the booth arguably outlasted the impact of his pitching career, and that is not a knock on his pitching. It is a testament to how good he was on the air.
Fifty-plus games remain on the Giants schedule. Enjoy every one of them. The voice of the franchise is on his way out, and there will not be another one like him.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
