Mike Krukow’s retirement is going to take a long time for Giants fans to process

There exists a class of entertainer or performer who becomes so widely beloved for doing exactly what they want to do that they should simply be allowed to do it forever. In a perfect world, they’d have the longevity of a geological feature or national monument. They wouldn’t be able to retire any more than El Capitan or the Golden Gate Bridge would be able to retire, and they’d be fine with that. They get paid to do something that they would do for free, after all.

Mike Krukow, who on Thursday announced his retirement at the end of the 2026 season, is in this group. If you’re disappointed that this article will likely be something of a hagiography, you’re in the minority. Everyone else is going to need a place to process their emotions.

Go back to that class of public figure mentioned in the first paragraph. We’re talking the ones that everyone can agree on, like Dolly Parton, Steve Martin or Danny DeVito. Ron Carter and Herbie Hancock are playing at the Monterey Jazz Festival this September, and they should have the opportunity to do it every year until 2568 if they want. Future generations should have the same opportunity to see them play from the depths of their souls with an ocean breeze at their back, just as reliably as tourists can expect to see the Northern Lights or the view at the Grand Canyon.

Krukow is, of course, more of a regional treasure than an international one, but he’s still in that invitation-only class of the universally beloved. The common connection and through line for everyone mentioned up there is that they radiate joy with everything they do. They somehow found exactly what they wanted to do on this planet and, guess what, it’s exactly what we want them to be doing. It becomes a positive feedback loop that never ends, and there’s never a downside, never a hidden cost. All they put out into the world is something that makes your life better, and in return, all they ask is for the ability to keep doing it. They should get a pass from the physical realities of the world.

They do not get a pass from the physical realities of the world. The fact that Krukow wants to continue but his body won’t let him makes this tougher than it already would have been. If he had retired to read three books a day and play guitar with a bluebird on his shoulder, it still would have hurt, but it would have been a bittersweet pain. Instead, you know that nobody on this planet is as crushed as Krukow himself. All he wanted to do was be the voice of every Giants’ season. All you wanted to do was listen to him.

Duane Kuiper (left) and Mike Krukow have been the narrative voice for Giants’ fans for all the peaks and valleys of the last 36 years, including their three World Series titles. (Robert Edwards / USA Today)

This is the one that will get folks in a way they weren’t expecting. This is the one that will make fans feel something move deep inside them. You’ve seen retirements before from players and managers, who gave final tips of the cap to a teary-eyed crowd, but the bond between fan and announcers is on another level. The best way to put it is this: I’ve almost certainly heard Krukow’s voice more in my life than my father’s. That’s not to put ol’ Pops down — he was a very hands-on father who spent a lot of time with me. It’s just a mathematical reality. My father didn’t talk at me for three hours a day, 150 days out of the year, over the last several decades. And if he’d had tried to, I would have hit him with a mallet.

There’s no easy way to describe the symbiotic relationship between a fan and a favorite announcer, then, because you can’t reasonably grapple with just how much time you’ve spent with this person in your life, in your home, in your danged head. It’s a lot. It’s so much more than you might have ever contemplated until this moment. This isn’t just a retirement of a single person in an entertainment-related business, but a foundational shift with how you interact with the world.

As always, the best response to news of what’s changing is an appreciation of what existed in the first place. I get the most mileage hashing and rehashing all the different ways it didn’t have to happen. If a different scout sees Krukow at Cal Poly, maybe he’s drafted and sticks with a different organization. If the Giants realized that Bill Madlock was going to keep winning batting titles, maybe they don’t trade him for Al Holland, who’s eventually traded for Krukow. Heck, Madlock was only there because of Bobby Murcer. Which is all to say that if Bobby Bonds’ parents never meet, it’s possible the San Francisco Giants don’t even exist. They sure would have been a lot less fun over the decades.

Instead, all of those little twists and turns, the trillions-deep line of dominoes that extends into the past, led to something that was unexpectedly right instead of the chaos and uncertainty it usually leaves us with. Here’s the perfect fit of person, place, role, time, space … all of it. Here was someone who was born to be where he ended up, helping everyone get through this thing called life. Krukow fully recognizes the beauty and absurdity of the sport, often at the same time, which is exactly how you get through 400-500 hours of talking about the same thing, year after year, without growing tiresome. Baseball is the silliest thing in the world. It’s the most important thing in the world. It’s both; it’s neither. It’s everything until you need a break to attend to what’s actually important, but it will be right where you left it. Throughout all of that, the Giants had a voice who made it all better.

Krukow grew up a Dodgers fan in Southern California, but he was acquired as the broadcaster to be named later in the trade for Giants fan Vin Scully, metaphysically speaking, and everyone was better for it. There’s going to be a lot to process over the next two months, and it’s unfair that it has to end, especially before he wants it to.

Krukow’s broadcasting career will always remain a gift, though, and it’s the kind that doesn’t have to show up for every organization or fan base just because it’s their turn. The Giants got lucky. So did their fans. So did Krukow himself. Everybody knew it the entire time it was happening, and nobody will forget about it when it’s over.