John Kruk is a national treasure, and there’s no two ways about it.
The 63-year-old Kruk is an old-school ballplayer with quite the personality and not much of a filter in the broadcast booth, somewhat akin to Keith Hernandez. He may have some all-time bad jinxes, but he also redeems himself with his dry sense of humor and his ability to have his partner, play-by-play voice Tom McCarthy, in stitches more often than not.
During the fourth inning of Wednesday’s game between the Philadelphia Phillies and Cincinnati Reds, Kruk found himself fascinated with the name of the first base umpire, who had just called a foul ball down the first base line. Besides the crew chief and home plate umpire, you’re not exactly looking at household names, unless their name rolls off the tongue.
And for Kruk, that was Malachi Moore. The 32-year-old Moore, a career minor league umpire since 2012, finally got the call-up to the big leagues ahead of the 2023 season alongside nine others. But he’s probably the only one of those 10 who Kruk would consider naming his kid after.
“Malachi with the call; he don’t miss those,” said Kruk. “I love that name.”
“It’s a good name,” added McCarthy.
Without missing a beat, Kruk turned to his broadcast partner and told McCarthy when they have a child together, they should name him Malachi.
John Kruk was so infatuated with the first base umpire's first name, Malachi (Moore), that he made an off-hand comment to Tom McCarthy about naming a kid — if they have one together — Malachi.
Malachi Kruk-McCarthy. pic.twitter.com/EkobKzlpdy
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) April 4, 2024
“If you and I have a child together, then yes, we can name him Malachi,” McCarthy said as he fought through a few chuckles.
Kruk and the 55-year-old McCarthy do about everything together. They don’t spend 162 games in the booth with one another, but it’s close to it, and that’s not including Spring Training. So, you can sense that Kruk had given it great detail to think that perhaps he and McCarthy could father a child together.
Usually, there’s a bit more of a process involved in naming an unborn child, but it didn’t take McCarthy much convincing to choose the name “Malachi.” Perhaps the absurdity of the idea had McCarthy eager to agree that, given the likelihood of all this happening, why not name the kid Malachi?
Not to pour cold water on the idea, but we can’t say for certain that Kruk and McCarthy will have a kid together. But if any soon-to-be parents were listening and have been stuck on name ideas, maybe hearing Kruk laud the name “Malachi” helped sort some things out.
Malachi Kruk-McCarthy does have a nice ring to it.
If we don’t get at least one child named Malachi out of this whole ordeal, it’d be an upset.
[Awful Announcing on Twitter/X]
