How Giants broadcaster Greenwald left epic impact on Krukow, Kuiper
SAN FRANCISCO — You heard him over the course of the San Francisco Giants’ three World Series victories since 2010. You heard him over the course of these past two dismal seasons.
You heard him whether you knew it or not. Because Hank Greenwald, who died Monday at age 83, lives on in the two smart aleck ex-ballplayers he mentored into becoming topnotch broadcasters.
“Every time we saw him, we always thanked him for being the guy who guided us to where we wanted to be,” Duane Kuiper said by phone Tuesday.
Kuiper and Mike Krukow were near the end of their playing careers at a time when Greenwald was still in his broadcasting prime. Kuiper, a second baseman, retired after a 100-loss season in 1985; Krukow, a pitcher, said goodbye after the pennant-winning season in 1989.
And as the two players first dipped their toes into the broadcasting booth as fledgling analysts, Greenwald was their play-by-plan man, as well as their occasional task-master.
That was 19 combined Emmys ago for Krukow and Kuiper. But it was not always a smooth ride.
“He could be abrupt,” Krukow said in a phone interview. “If you screwed up, he might give you a lesson between innings.”
Or, he might not even wait that long.
Kuiper recalled the time Greenwald scolded him right there on the air. During a key moment in the game, Kuiper asked his broadcast partner, “What would you do here? Would you bunt?” Greenwald was not amused. “How about if I be a play-byplay man,” he replied, “and I’ll let somebody else manage the game.”
Kuiper never asked him to second-guess the action again.
“Occasionally, I think about all those players who hated Vince Lombardi,” Kuiper, a Wisconsin native, said of the famously gruff Green Bay Packers coach. “I don’t want to imply that I hated Hank Greenwald, obviously, but there was some tough love.”
Sometimes, the echoes you hear from Hank Stem from what you don’t hear from Krukow and Kuiper. For example, you don’t hear “we.”
“He was adamant about saying he never wanted us to use the term ‘we,’ “Kuiper said. “And for guys who had just been playing, that’s a tough thing to avoid saying the first, second, third, fourth years you’re in the booth.
“But if you said something like, ‘We need to score some runs here?’ Hank wouldn’t play that at all.”
Another no-no: Talking over the action. The hyper-verbal Krukow, especially, was a bit of a runaway train in those early days. Greenwald told him clearly that he’d better wrap up that sentence before the next pitch.
Greenwald also got Krukow to chill a bit, in general, by explaining to him that the primary goal was to allow radio listeners to have a clear picture of what they could not see.
“You have to be able to calm your adrenaline down,” Krukow said. “When you’re talking so fast, and they can’t understand what you’re telling them, that’s when the radio gets turned off.
“It’s about pace, it’s about rhythm. And you use your voice to control that.”
Krukow compared it Tuesday it to a pitcher who has five different pitches, all with different types of speeds and movements. He said that under Greenwald’s guidance, he learned to do the same thing with his vocal cords.
“You should a have lot of things you can do with your voice. I can talk slooooow. Or I can be LOUD,” Krukow said. “I can be terse. I can use one word. But if it’s the right word, it can be amazingly dramatic.”
Krukow and Kuiper both still marvel over Greenwald’s preparation. In the days before the internet, Greenwald somehow spent his days unearthing perfect stats and anecdotes. Kuiper said that Greenwald was a master about stashing away little tales from baseball history — not necessarily just the Giants — and unveiling it just as a game went quiet.
Greenwald expected his analysts to put in the effort, too.
“I used to come to the ballpark with a stack of papers, just to make sure it looked like I stayed up all night,” Kuiper joked. “If he ever would have opened those notebooks he’d see that most of the pages were blank.”
Krukow said of Greenwald: “He was disciplined, and he was proud of it.”
Kuiper just wrapped up his 34th season and has been a finalist for the Ford C. Frick Award for broadcasting excellence. Krukow, also a former Frick finalist, spent his 29th season in the booth and was the California Sportscaster of the Year in 2015 and 2017.
For that, they both know that they can thank Hank.