If Awful Announcing can’t sell you on John Kruk being one of the most interesting analysts in Major League Baseball, maybe John Oliver can.
Sunday’s “And Now This” segment on HBO’s Last Week Tonight featured “The delightfully bizarre musings of Phillies commentator John Kruk.” And without context, Oliver’s audience was immediately treated to Kruk wondering why males aren’t born with hair on their chest. Keep in mind, that question was not posed off-air or during a blowout, Kruk broached the topic of males having to wait for puberty to grow hair on their chests while the Phillies were trailing 5-3 in the ninth.
John Kruk montage at the end of Last Week Tonight pic.twitter.com/YLcx2bm3mF
— Nick Piccone (@_piccone) August 12, 2024
Oliver’s show proceeded to highlight Kruk stating he banned Caillou from his household, recalling the time he woke up to a “dang giraffe looking” in his window, playing baseball against a prison team, and some dating stories that involved a shotgun.
While Oliver gave his audience a nice overview of what the beloved Phillies analyst is like as an announcer, this was amazingly just the tip of the iceberg of Kruk stories. They didn’t even mention Kruk’s squirrel huntin’ stories!
But Major League Baseball still probably owes Oliver, or someone on Last Week Tonight’s staff, a big thank you. Because while the sport struggles to attract new fans, there may be no better way of reaching a new audience than by showing off what Kruk can do behind a microphone.
[Last Week Tonight, via Nick Piccone]
