If Joe Buck and Troy Aikman can enjoy a tequila, a splash of Grand Marnier and grapefruit juice in the booth from time to time, then John Kruk should be able to have a few Yuenglings.
With the best record in baseball and an 8.5 game lead in the National League East, the Philadelphia Phillies haven’t made their fans sit through too many clunkers this season. Monday night against the New York Yankees, however, was a clunker.
While trailing 7-2 in the sixth inning, NBC Sports Philadelphia showed a Phillies fan downing a 16oz can of beer and it had Kruk thinking about ways to improve the broadcast. Kruk took one look at the can and basically yelled, “beer me.”
“I’ll tell you what,” Kruk said after the fan displayed the empty can of Yuengling with the logo sitting almost too perfectly in front of the camera. “The way this game is going, send a few up here.”
And Monday night, the urge for a beer would get even stronger for Kruk, with the Yankees eventually jumping out to a 14-4 lead.
“This game is just getting silly now,” play-by-play voice Tom McCarthy said after the Jazz Chisholm homer to make it 14-4, prompting a more blunt assessment from Kruk.
“Some say silly, some say it sucks,” Kruk bemoaned.
The Phillies TV booth ranked No. 7 in Awful Announcing’s local MLB broadcaster rankings earlier this month. A very respectable finish. But if there were rankings for which MLB broadcaster is most likely to have a beer in the booth, Kruk would have to be even higher on the list.
About Brandon Contes
Brandon Contes is a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. He previously helped carve the sports vertical for Mediaite and spent more than three years with Barrett Sports Media. Send tips/comments/complaints to bcontes@thecomeback.com