At the first San Francisco Giants game she attended, at age 7, Ashlynn Lewis was settling into a bite of purple cotton candy when the TV camera caught her and the image was put on the air with TV color man Mike Krukow providing commentary. “MMM. Cotton candy. Finger Lickin'” good,” he broadcast and that marked the start of Lewis’ life of fame as a “Gamer Babe,” a term of endearment for female fans invented by the announcer.
Thirteen years later Lewis, now 20 and a student at Sacramento State, put streaks in her hair the exact color of that cotton candy and accessorized it with a “Krukow” replica jersey that cost her $199 at the Giants dugout store. She got the last one before they sold out, and was wearing it Sunday during the final game of the season, which is also the final game of Krukow’s career as an announcer.
“Kruk is going to live in history whether I wear it or not,” Lewis said as she buttoned her Krukow jersey over her Brandon Belt jersey. “Nobody did it better.”
The beloved, funny and eminently trusted TV color commentator has reached the end of his career due to a chronic medical condition, after 37 years in the broadcast booth. Sunday is the last game of a sad season of nearly 100 losses, made infinitely sadder by the knowledge that the announcing team of Duane Kuiper and Mike Krukow, both former Giants players, would never be heard calling a game again. There will be no Charlie Brown cry of “Wait until next year” for Kruk and Kuip.
“It gets me,” said Lewis who started to choke up and lean on her mom, Amy Busevac, who was not doing much better. “I’m going to cry today. Guarantee it.”
Probably as early as the national anthem, which was sung in three-part harmony by three of the five Krukow children. The final home series of the season is known as Fan Appreciation Weekend, but Sunday wasn’t really about the fans.
“This is Kruk’s day, all day long,” said Marsha Zanetti, who did her part by wearing a Kruk jersey over a Kruk T-shirt, and two Kruk “Atta Babe” buttons on her hat. She also carried a Kruk placard handed out at the gate.
If fans were at the game that meant they were not at home watching Kruk on the TV broadcast. So it was definitely a tradeoff – hear him or see him up in the booth. But Zanetti had that figured out. She was recording the game on TV and when she made it home to San Carlos, after the postgame ceremony, she expected to watch it to pick up all the subtleties that she missed by watching in person.
“Kruk brings the game to life and you understand everything he says,” said Zanetti, who is still trying to figure out the nuances, and she’s been a fan of the Giants since they arrived from New York in 1958. “He explains everything in plain English that even a non sports fan can understand.”
At the top of the 2nd inning, Kruk and Kuip earned their first standing ovation of the game, when introduced over the PA, with the camera on Kruk, waving from his seat in the booth. Fans waved back with their homemade signs, evoking Krukisms. “Mahalo Meat,” read one. “Kruk and Kuip the Sound of Summer,” read another. A two-person sign read “Kruk and Kuip: The Dream Team,” and “You Gave Your Heart to San Francisco.”
Sonya Holmquist of Redding had that beat with a four-person sign that took her all of Saturday to make. It consisted of cardboard cutouts bearing the faces of the four announcers – Kruk and Kuip, Jon Miller and baby-faced Dave Fleming, with just one whisker. There were two couples involved in the holding and Holmquist got to hold the Kruk sign, since she had made them. She’d even put a beret on it since Kruk once wore one.
The foursome, including her husband, Scott Holmquist and Marco and Janine Susich, had left Redding at 6 a.m. and did not plan to drive home with those signs.
“We want to give the signs to the announcers personally,” Janine Susich. “If it’s not on the field, we’ll go up to the booth.”
The Giants came within one foul ball homerun of keeping the Dodgers from their 100th win of the season, which would have been a moral victory. But with one final cheer of “Dodgers Suck,” the Giants went down with a final strikeout 5-1 in 10 innings, for their 97th loss of the season. You could round that up to 100 losses if you count the loss of Kruk, who was determined to keep Fan Appreciation Weekend about the fans.
“I really thought I was going to get all the names of everybody at the ballpark Sunday because I wanted to go right down the list and thank them all,” he told the Chronicle’s Susan Slusser when she visited him at his home in Reno last week. “They were the show for 37 years.”
The reading of the names would have taken a while because the game was a sellout, 40,000-plus and only those wearing L.A. hats and Dodgers jerseys left before the postgame ceremony. The people wearing Krukow jerseys and T-shirts didn’t want the Kruk era to end and it hasn’t.
“I’m not above watching the whole game all over again on TV,” Zanetti said. Her seatmate, Lisa Eckles of Redwood City would be watching it, too. And even that would not be the end for her life with Kruk. His final radio segment on KNBR would be Monday morning at 7:30.
“My alarm is set,” she said. “I never miss it.”
Neither does retired Chronicle sports columnist Bruce Jenkins. He’s doing research for a book that he and Kruk will collaborate on.
“It will be the project of a lifetime,” said Jenkins during the game. “We’ll both have plenty of time to work on it.”
The onfield ceremony was delayed by the postgame wrap in the booth but thousands remained to see Kruk, who stood 6-foot 5-inches on the pitcher’s mound for 14 seasons, take the field in a motorized chair, no longer able to walk. His broadcast partner Kuiper walked slowly beside as fans stood and cheered “Krukow, Krukow, Krukow.” Or simply “Krooook.”
“Kruk and Kuip have a way of making Giants fans feel they’re part of something bigger than a baseball game,” said Buster Posey. “You’re one of the greatest and most important Giants of all time.”
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This article originally published at Giants fans say goodbye as Mike Krukow signs off after 37 seasons of game commentary.
