San Francisco Giants announcer Duane Kuiper put out a statement through the team on Sunday revealing that he had been diagnosed with throat cancer, and has already begun treatment.
“This cancer is unrelated to the one I experienced five years ago, and I’m optimistic that it will be successfully treated,” Kuiper wrote. “I’ll miss the broadcasts tomorrow and Wednesday as I continue treatment, but I’m looking forward to returning Tuesday and this weekend to celebrate my partner, Mike Krukow, and his remarkable career as he calls his final game before retirement. I’m incredibly grateful for the care I’m receiving and for the tremendous support from my family, the Giants organization, my broadcast partners and so many others.”
Kuiper previously missed a portion of the 2021 season while undergoing chemotherapy.
It is going to be an emotional few days in the Giants broadcast booth to close out the 2026 season. As Kuiper alluded to, his good friend and broadcast partner of three decades Mike Krukow is set to call the final games of his career in the coming days. Krukow announced his intention to retire earlier this summer due to physical complications caused by inclusion body myositis, a degenerative muscle disease he has been battling for 20 years.
Kuiper’s treatments mean he’ll miss some of the final games of Krukow’s run with San Francisco, but it is good to hear that he expects to be back in time to celebrate his final game.
In the days after announcing his coming retirement, Krukow said that the hardest part of the entire process was breaking the news to Kuiper.
“Horrible. It’s the worst thing I’ve ever had to do — is walk away from him. In my life,” Krukow told KNBR of what it was like to break the news to Kuiper. “He looked at me, and he goes, ‘No, you’re not.’ He was quiet. Then we walked out of the lunchroom together. He put his arm on my shoulders, and we just quietly walked back to the booth. Went back and did our job.”
Kuiper has said that he plans to continue calling games next year even without Krukow beside him in the broadcast booth. Krukow’s departure will mean the end of one of the most popular local broadcast teams in all of baseball. Krukow, Kuiper and the rest of the Giants broadcast team have long ranked among the top of Awful Announcing’s MLB broadcaster rankings, most recently being voted second in the country.
About Tyler Lauletta
Tyler is a editorial contributor at Awful Announcing, with previous stops at Sports Illustrated and Business Insider during his career covering sports in digital media. He is, begrudgingly, a Truster of the Process and general Philly sports sicko.