Tim Kurkjian shares new career highlight, a podcast with his son

There is no one in the media more knowledgeable about Major League Baseball than Tim Kurkjian.

The longtime ESPN analyst and Hall of Fame writer has followed the sport for decades. He is synonymous with The Worldwide Leader in Sports’ MLB coverage. In recent years, Kurkjian, 69, has decided to do something different. He co-hosts a podcast with his 32-year-old son, Jeff, called Is This A Great Game, or What?

We recently caught up with Kurkjian to discuss the podcast, the baseball season, and other topics.

Note: This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.

What led you to start a podcast with your son?

Tim Kurkjian: “Jeffrey has been asking me for years to do this. We just never found the right time, but this time we decided, ‘All right, we’re going to do this.’ We’re in our third year. The first year, we did one a week. Now we do three, and it has been the highlight of my professional career working with my son. I think it really works because he doesn’t know a whole lot about baseball, and I only know about three things in life, like baseball, basketball, and sitcoms from the 60s. But he knows everything about everything else, music, pop culture, all this stuff, and he’s a magician with technology, so I think we’re a pretty good team. I provide most of the content for the podcast, but mostly it’s just a father-son relationship show.”

Your son has a radio career. When did you know he would be good at broadcasting?

“I took him to Cooperstown, and while I was at Radio Row, one of the producers from a small New York station asked ten-year-old Jeff Kurkjian if he would like to do a radio spot about what it’s like for a ten-year-old to be in Cooperstown. He did an eight-minute radio spot. The producer came up to me afterward and said, ‘He was great. I can’t believe how good he was at age 10.’ But more importantly, Jeffrey came to me afterward and said this is what he wanted to do, so the light went on for him when he was 10.”

Does he not know much about baseball?

“He knows more about baseball than most people do. I’m just saying, in relation to me, he doesn’t know that much. So if I tell him a story about Stan Musial, there’s a pretty good chance he’s never heard it before, and that’s why the show actually works. When I tell him something, his reaction is natural because he didn’t know that. If I had another baseball guy on, I would tell him the Stan Musial note, and he would say, ‘Well, I’ve already heard that.’ The response I get from him is what makes it work well, at least to me, and I think I’ve turned him into a little bit more of a baseball fan. He’s even more of a fan now, because he’s looking at box scores for arcane, stupid little things as I do and have for my entire life.”

Has there been a learning curve for podcasts?

“What the podcast has allowed me to do is take my time to tell a story because we’re not under the gun on Baseball Tonight or SportsCenter to do it in 20 seconds, so that’s what I’ve enjoyed the most. When we get to interview somebody, instead of interviewing them for five minutes like we might do on the set at the World Series or the All-Star Game, we’ve got 45 minutes with them. In doing something like that, you have to gauge how to ask the question properly, when to ask it, what to ask, when to start the interview, and how to finish it. That’s what the podcast has really taught me the most about doing a long-form interview.”

Do you have a favorite episode?

“Last year, we interviewed Jeff Francoeur, a former Brave. He told this absolutely priceless Bobby Cox story. He said, ‘I was 22 years old, trying to make the team in spring training. Bobby comes up to me and says, I heard you have a chance to play golf with Tiger Woods today.’ Francoeur says, ‘Yes, I’ve been invited, but I’m not going. I’m a baseball player. I’m playing today.’ Bobby says, ‘I’ll make a deal with you. If you go to Bradenton in two days, because none of our guys like to go to Bradenton because the infield is so bad, I will give you today off, but this is what I want you to do. I want you to, after your first at-bat, pretend that you injured your leg or something along the way, then I’ll get you out of the game, and then you can go play golf.’”

What happened next?

“So, Jeff Francoeur hit a groundout against the Yankees, and when he crossed first base, he started limping. They took him out of the game. He didn’t take a shower, jumped into his golf clothes, got to the first tee just as they were teeing off, and then played 27 holes with Tiger Woods. At 4.30 that afternoon, his wife sent him a text, ‘You’re on the wire.’ You were taken out of the game with a mild ankle sprain, which wasn’t an ankle sprain at all. He faked the whole thing because his manager told him to. A priceless story. I had never heard that before, and Jeff Francoeur had never told it before.”

Turning to baseball, what has stood out to you so far this season?

“The pitching we see now is absolutely ridiculous. The stuff is completely out of control. Christopher Sanchez has a streak going right now, 44⅔ scoreless innings. In May, he’s got no walks, 45 strikeouts, and no runs. It’s insane how good he’s been. Jacob Misiorowski, who already has 100 strikeouts, threw 57 pitches at 100 mph or faster the other day. Mason Miller of the Padres is having a season that maybe no relief pitcher has ever had. He has struck out more than half the batters he’s faced. Every time I look at a television or go to a game, I ask myself, ‘How does anyone get a hit anymore?’ That’s how dominant the stuff is.”

Is Shohei Ohtani going to be the first player to have both a Cy Young and an MVP award?

“This is totally absurd what he is doing this year. His ERA is 0.82. (Wednesday) night, he pitched six no-hit innings and hit a home run. The last guy to go six no-hit innings and hit a home run was Jake Arrieta in 2015. Every time Ohtani steps on the field, he does something remarkable. There’s no way around it. He is the most remarkable player anyone has ever seen.”

You make appearances on The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz for the ‘Looks Like’ game. Which is your favorite?

“’Jeff Van Gundy looks like a coroner who does an autopsy while eating a ham sandwich.’ After that, I said, all right, I’m completely hooked. I’ve been doing this with The Le Batard Show for about 15 years. It’s incredibly smart, clever writing, and it comes from these people who, as Dan calls them, are the community of people who love our show.

“I met a guy. He tackled me at the Denver airport and said, ‘Oh my gosh. I sent in a Looks Like. They read it on the air on The Le Batard Show, and you laughed at it.’ He said, ‘It was the greatest day of my entire life.’”

Any other odd encounters?

“I went to the White House. One of the security guys there walked by me and whispered. He said, ‘Andy Reid looks like…’ and left it open, like an ellipsis, just fill in the blanks. So he had obviously watched the show for years, and it’s just criminal what that show does to Adam Silver, who is a great commissioner. But ‘Adam Silver looks like the lone French fry in a bag of onion rings’ is just ridiculously funny.”