3-Dot Lounge:
12 years since being diagnosed with a muscle disease, the desire of Mike Krukow, above, is unsurpassed.
Giants fans will be glad to know that Mike Krukow will arrive at spring training next weekend, scheduled to work the Sunday Giants-Dodgers telecast. They’ll also be glad to know that his sense of humor is intact.
“Once you hit feeble, there’s only so much you can do,” he said in a telephone conversation. “I’m fourth-degree feeble.”
He was laughing as he said it, because nothing is going to stop his passion for baseball, the broadcast booth or life itself. His condition is a veritable haven for self-pity, but Krukow doesn’t understand the concept. Ask anyone who’s been around him, either briefly or extensively, and the reaction is always the same: This is the most stoked individual on Earth.
Twelve years have passed since Krukow was diagnosed with inclusion-body myositis, a degenerative muscle disease that is neither curable nor life-threatening. His legs grow weaker each year — as his spirit soars. His wife and five children, all in adulthood, are doing splendidly. Once a casual guitarist, Krukow has become proficient on a number of instruments, studying style, technique and history as he goes. And then there is the ballpark, his sanctuary.
As was the case last season, he will work 120 games with Duane Kuiper in the NBC Sports Bay Area booth, not traveling east of Denver. “I was almost apologetic about it at first, but then I noticed how many other major-league broadcasters take a bunch of games off,” he said. “Vin Scully told me that if you want to keep doing this, you’ve gotta keep cutting (the workload) down. Now I realize it’s the greatest thing I ever did. I just couldn’t keep grinding.”
However: “If I was healthy, I’d be all Ray Fosse,” he said, referring to the A’s television analyst. “He hates to miss even one game. And I get that. I always felt I had to be around the team every day, feeling the pulse of the game and the team, and it’s tough watching at home. But in the end, it’s how I got through the season. Right now? I’m there, I’m good to go. I don’t know what I’d do without this game. I really don’t.”
Krukow isn’t certain how he feels about the new pace-ofplay rules, mostly centered on the limitation of mound visits, because he wants to see the process in action. “I know this: I can never understand why catchers or pitching coaches feel like they have to go out there two or three times an inning. There’s an absurdity to that; it breaks the rhythm of the game. And that’s the key word, rhythm.”
Whatever rule changes come into play, “The game’s rhythm has to be controlled by the players,” Krukow said. “They have to identify it and plug into it. If you’re hitting, get in the box, stay there and hit. Pitchers need to pick up the pace, especially with runners on base. Sometimes you’ll change things up to disrupt someone’s timing, but I see catchers making all these trips to the mound, often at the exact wrong time. And so many players come out of college or amateur ball without being allowed to think. Everything comes from the dugout: what pitch to call, where to set up the defense, everything. A player’s instinct has to take precedent over that. How you develop as a player is how you develop instinct.”
His best example: “Barry Bonds used to play about 20 feet off the left-field line when (right-handers) John Burkett or Billy Swift were facing lefty hitters. They weren’t pulling the ball because those big sinkers broke down and away. So Bonds is out there, and you could drive 25 Mack trucks between him and the center fielder. And he was right. He knew everyone’s swing and where they tended to hit the ball. That’s genius instinct. He could tell the defensive coaches to take a hike. He was that good.”
Better days ahead
It’s never a good thing to be assigned the No. 78 in spring training. That generally means a trip to the minor leagues before it’s over. Steven Duggar is wearing that number in the Giants’ camp, as a nonroster invitee, but it may not last. The Giants would love to see Duggar make the bigleague club, perhaps by Opening Day, as the starting center fielder or sharing platoon duties with Austin Jackson. Duggar is a “gifted” outfielder, said manager Bruce Bochy, and his line-drive stroke was on display in Friday’s exhibition game when he ripped a two-run double down the right-field line. A player to watch ... It’s always a pleasure to see Stephen Vogt, the beloved A’s catcher now with Milwaukee. Andrew Suarez, viewed as a potential Giants starter down the road, was flashing impressive stuff on Friday before Vogt calmly drilled a single to right ... The Giants’ Buster Posey is going to be an especially valuable catcher this season with mound visits limited to six per game. Willson Contreras, the Cubs’ talented and volatile young catcher, boasted this week that he’ll visit the mound whenever he feels like it, “and if they fine me, I’ll pay the price.” Watch for Posey to judiciously save those visits until the late innings, when they really matter, and try to have a couple in his pocket ... A bonus having Andrew McCutchen on the team: He is acutely aware of the lack of African American players in the game and has worked extensively with inner-city youth. In Pittsburgh, he was acclaimed for his work with Habitat for Humanity and Cutch’s Crew, which donates to community programs in Western Pennsylvania.