by DrLefty
As most of us know, the Willie Mac Award was established in 1980 to honor Willie McCovey’s “quiet strength, integrity, and leadership both on and off the field.” It is voted on every year by players, coaches, and training staff to honor the most inspirational player on the team that year.
The first winner in 1980 was homegrown slugger Jack Clark. Mike Krukow won the award in two consecutive seasons, 1985 and 1986. This is notable because the two wins bridge a very significant two-year period in the team’s history. In 1985, the Giants lost a franchise record 100 games. In 1986, the “You Gotta Like These Kids” year, the Giants began a turnaround season led by rookies Will Clark and Robby Thompson–and a 20-win season by Krukow, who represented the Giants in the All-Star Game and finished third in Cy Young Award voting. Those were the two best seasons of Krukow’s 14-year career.
Last night, as the 2026 recipient, Logan Webb, was being honored, previous WMA winners in attendance were introduced. The first name announced, up in the broadcast booth, was Krukow (that’s what the photo at the top is from). It was a rather anemic turnout by the former winners, honestly, but that’s not surprising given what a terrible year the Giants have had. (Has anyone else noticed that Mike “Tiny” Felder always shows up, though? Also, where the heck was Matt Chapman, the 2024 winner? I thought he and Webb were close.) But really the WMA turnout didn’t matter, the game didn’t matter, and even Webb’s win didn’t resonate all that much (we’ll get to that in a minute). This weekend is all about Mike Krukow.
As we’ve all known for a couple of months, Kruk is retiring from the broadcast booth after tomorrow’s game after 33 years of working continuously with his partner and best friend, Duane Kuiper. Kruk is doing so with regret. At 74, he’s still as sharp and insightful and personable as he ever was, but the progression of his muscle disease has made it increasingly difficult for him to leave his Reno home safely. Susan Slusser traveled to Reno last week and published a great in-depth interview with him. Among other things, he said he’d like to write a book, and I for one can’t wait to read it.
There have been so many stories and tributes to him that I can’t possibly do it all justice. I will just say from the heart how much I am going to miss him. In 2016, I briefly met Mike Krukow. The Giants were playing interleague series at Fenway Park and Yankee Stadium in late July, so we planned a trip around it, as did hundreds of other Giants faithful. There was an off-day between the Red Sox and Yankees series, so we took the train from Boston and New York. The entire train was so packed with Giants fans in orange and black that the conductor played the “Say Hey” Willie Mays song over the loudspeaker. Besides all of us fans, Kruk and Kuip were on the train. As we exited at Penn Station in New York, I found myself walking alongside Mike Krukow. At that point he was still walking pretty well with a cane and even navigated the escalator just fine. I struck up a conversation and we talked about how the Fenway series had gone (not well) and how proud he was of Giants fans for making themselves heard in the ballpark. He expressed optimism that the Giants would bounce back in New York (they did not). That was my moment with him, and he was as authentic and friendly as you would expect.
In 1994, I was in my 30s, trying to earn tenure, and taking care of two small children. Now I’m a retired senior citizen. That’s how many of my summers have been narrated by Mike Krukow and Duane Kuiper. It chokes me up just thinking about it, and I can only imagine how he, Duane Kuiper, the rest of the broadcast and production team, and the Giants organization are feeling. I cried when I saw the unexpected announcement of Buster Posey’s retirement in 2021. I wasn’t ready. This is 100 times worse. The 49ers game starts about 90 minutes after the Giants game tomorrow, but I’ll be staying tuned to the Giants so that I can hear Krukow’s final moments on the call and watch the post-game ceremony.
Attababe, Kruk.
Congratulations to Logan Webb!
I have conflicted feelings about Webb’s win. On the one hand, it’s about time. He’s the longest tenured Giant–by a lot–and he’s been a team leader and the face of the franchise for a bunch of mostly really frustrating seasons. But he’s a three-time All-Star (including this season). He’s gotten Cy Young Award votes in the previous four seasons, finishing as high as second in 2023. I’ve honestly been surprised that he hasn’t won the WMA before, and I thought last year, when he led the NL in innings and strikeouts and won a Gold Glove, would have been the perfect time for him to win. (Willy Adames won it.)
It’s ironic that he won this year, by far the worst full season of his career. (He pitched partial seasons in 2019 and 2020, and I’m not counting those.) You could also argue that the Giants have had such a terrible season that they just should have skipped the WMA this year. We’ll never really know if Webb’s insistence on pitching for Team USA in the WBC this year–over Buster Posey’s objections–is why he had such a down year. (He did, after all, pitch so well in June that he was NL Pitcher of the Month.) It’s likely that even a more typical season from Webb (from 2021-2025, he ranged from 3.8-5.6 bWAR) wouldn’t have made that much of a difference in the Giants’ overall trajectory. Maybe they’d be 25 games under .500 instead of 30? There’s only so much one starting pitcher can do. Webb, in fact, is the first starting pitcher to win the award since Madison Bumgarner in 2014.
I’m happy for Webb because he deserves to be a WMA winner. He’s been a good Giant during a period of time when it hasn’t been a lot of fun to be a Giant. If you count the three-day reign of Kai Correa, he’s played for five managers and even more pitching coaches. I will always have a soft spot for Webb. We hope he comes back rested and ready to lead the staff again next year. Congratulations!
Also, congrats to the four voters who correctly predicted Webb’s win:
- totalfan62
- watchingsince62
- Hoffy22
- William Henri
Finishing Up the Season
I don’t really feel like talking about how our awful team is limping to the finish line. There will be plenty of time both to debrief the disastrous 2026 season and talk about the future. I will just make two quick observations, though, and they’re related. First, the Giants are likely to tie or break the major league record (71) for most players used in a season. After adding Bo Davidson and Marcelo Mayer to the active roster this week, they’re at 70. They are intent on having Zack Morgan make his major league debut this weekend. They also signed Camilo Doval off waivers a couple of days ago, and per their Transactions record, they activated him yesterday. So Morgan will be 71, and if Doval appears in a game, that would be the record breaker. (I’m not really sure what to say about the return of Doval other than a shrug emoji and “Well, why not?” The big question will be whether they retain his services for next year. He’ll be in his final year of arbitration eligibility, and if the Giants offer him arbitration, they’d have to pay him around $5M, if not more. They could, however, negotiate a return at a lower number. Doval seems happy to be back.)
The other observation is not original with me but it’s worth dropping here. Only two (2) players from the Giants’ Opening Day roster, Landen Roupp and Christian Koss, remain on the Giants’ active roster for this final weekend. Roupp has said he’s been shut down (the Giants correctly decided that 155 innings, by far Roupp’s career high, are plenty), so just like we all thought back in March, Koss is the last man standing. In case you’re forgotten, here’s who all was on that Opening Day roster.
This is how the 26-man math goes:
- two “survivors” (Roupp and Koss)
- seven traded (Bailey, Arraez, Ray, Miller, Kilian, Ramos, Mahle)
- three DFA’d (Borucki, Encarnacion, Oliva)
- 14 injured (everyone else)
It’s just amazing. I’ve never seen anything like this. I know I said that I’m not getting into postmortem analysis today, but I’ll give you one “spoiler” thought: The Giants’ disastrous season is not primarily about injuries. I’ll just leave it there for now.
Today’s Game
Dodgers at Giants, 1:05 p.m. at Oracle Park
Blake Snell (4-1, 1.86 ERA) vs. Matt “Tugboat” Wilkinson (1-3, 3.65 ERA)
I know it angers the baseball gods to root for players to get hurt during games, so I’ll just quietly hope that Snell’s pitching arm falls off, either from natural causes or that a bear eats it (hey, bears are nature!). I truly cannot stand that guy.
One more weekend. Enjoy every syllable that comes from Mike Krukow’s mouth. Then we’ll have many months (exactly how many TBD) to lick our collective wounds. Lefty out.
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