Giants broadcasters Duane Kuiper and Mike Krukow have each been nominated for the prestigious Ford C. Frick Award at different points in their careers, presented annually by the National Baseball Hall of Fame for excellence in broadcasting. Neither has received the award, however, with Krukow losing out to legendary A’s broadcaster Bill King last fall and Kuiper being edged out by Tom Cheek in 2013.
Despite this, ESPN’s Buster Olney believes the time has come to induct the pair into Cooperstown, arguing in his weekly roundup that the Baseball Hall of Fame should scrap its rules about accepting only one broadcaster per year.
“The two men are like a broadcast version of Tinker, Evers and Chance: You can’t really talk about the work of one without discussing the partner, and it would seem apropos that in some year, Kuiper and Krukow would be honored together,” Olney wrote. “There really isn’t precedent for this.
“In the first year of the Frick Award, in 1978, Red Barber and Mel Allen were honored together, which made sense because as with the first Hall of Fame class of Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson and others, Barber and Allen were pioneers in their field, they were legends.
“There are no rules in place that would allow Krukow and Kuiper to be voted in together. But the Hall of Fame has the power to recast its own rules, as it has done repeatedly in creating structure for the various veterans committee votes, and in the voting for the first-time eligible players.”
Krukow and Kuiper have been broadcasting Giants games together full-time for 23 seasons, after being teammates in San Francisco from 1983-85. Two weeks ago it was announced that Krukow will cut down his TV schedule to 120 games in 2017, as he deals with a muscle disease that has restricted his mobility.
“The Hall of Fame is a museum and it is about documenting history, and the broadcasting history of Kuiper and Krukow will forever be shared,” Olney wrote. “The best possible presentation of Kuip and Kruk would be if they were honored together.”
If inducted, Kruk and Kuip would be the fourth and fifth Giants broadcasters in the Baseball Hall of Fame, joining previous inductees Russ Hodges (1980), Lon Simmons (2004) and Jon Miller (2010).