Duane Kuiper explains why Mike Krukow’s retirement hit him ‘like a ton of bricks’

Everybody knows that nothing lasts forever. We try to ignore it, but we know it. The cliché is a cliché for a reason. Nobody can avoid the inevitability of impermanence. Even still, Duane Kuiper held out hope that he and Mike Krukow would be the exception to the rule and occupy the San Francisco Giants’ booth forever.

Now, Kuiper, 76, is reconciling with the reality that Krukow, 74, is retiring at the end of the 2026 MLB season, as he announced last week, and their decades-long, magical on-air partnership has an expiration date now.

“I mean, look, it wasn’t like I didn’t know this was coming,” Kuiper said on KNBR’s The Murph & Markus Show on Tuesday. “I didn’t know it was coming 15 years ago. I mean, I thought we were gonna go on forever. But as time went on, and years started to come by, and I could see all the work [Krukow] had to do to get to the park, you could tell that it was gonna happen. I was hoping maybe we would have a couple of more years together.”

Duane Kuiper told @knbrmurph & @MarkusBoucher he knew Krukow’s retirement was coming soon, but it still “hit him like a ton of bricks.”

“Life comes at you from all different directions. What we have to do is look back and say, ‘God, this was a great run.’ And we shouldn’t be sad… pic.twitter.com/3LJCCPtdpL

— KNBR (@KNBR) August 11, 2026

Krukow, 74, publicly disclosed his inclusion-body myositis diagnosis in July 2014, though he had been privately diagnosed with the degenerative muscle disease eight years prior.

“I wasn’t surprised, [but] I was really upset at the time he told me,” Kuiper continued. “So, like I said, it didn’t take me by surprise. It didn’t hurt me because of how it was gonna affect my life personally. It hurt me because of the relationship that we had and all the time that we had to spend together — and all the time now that we couldn’t spend together.

“I mean, look, I look forward to seeing him every day. All those years we traveled on the road from [when] we were teammates [on the Giants] in ’83. Mike stopped traveling probably about eight years ago, maybe. So, there was a good, long stretch of almost 30 years that, for seven months, we saw each other every day. And you can’t even say that about your wife, if you’re traveling a lot.

“It hit me like a ton of bricks, but I knew it was coming, if that makes any sense. And that’s why these next, you know, five weeks or whatever’s left is really important. I’m gonna miss him. I mean, I love the guy. He’s like a brother-plus.”

Kuiper, perhaps joking and perhaps not at all joking, added that he’s “pissed at” Krukow before clarifying, “I’m actually more pissed at what’s happened to him health-wise.”

“I know life isn’t perfect, but I kind of wanted this one to be close,” Kuiper said. “You don’t ever know what’s coming at you. Life comes at you from all different directions. What we have to do is look back and say, ‘God, this was a great run.’ And we shouldn’t be sad at all.”

On Monday, Krukow appeared on Murph & Markus and echoed Kuiper’s heartache, sharing that “walk[ing] away” from Kuiper is “the worst thing I’ve ever had to do” in his life.

“I put my hand on his shoulder, and we walked to the booth to do our jobs.”

Mike Krukow on sharing the news of his retirement with long time partner and friend Duane Kuiper.

(via @knbrmurph & @MarkusBoucher) pic.twitter.com/k5ABeGeR1s

— KNBR (@KNBR) August 10, 2026

“He looked at me, and he goes, ‘No, you’re not,’ Krukow said of Kuiper’s initial reaction to the news. “It was quiet. Then, we walked out of the lunchroom together. He put his arm on my shoulders, and we just quietly walked back to the booth. Went back and did our job.”

Kuiper and Krukow have been exceptional at their jobs since 1990. So great, in fact, they finished third in Awful Announcing’s 2025 MLB local broadcast rankings. Kuiper plans to continue in the Giants’ booth next season. “It’ll be different,” Kuiper told Andrew Baggarly of The Athletic.

Following Krukow’s retirement announcement, Giants fans gave an emotional Krukow a standing ovation at Oracle Park. There will be more where that came from when the Giants hold an official ceremony for Krukow at Oracle on Sept. 27. It will be the Giants’ — 49-70 and not remotely close to the playoffs — season finale against the Los Angeles Dodgers.

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