Kirk Gibson opens up on leaving Tigers announce booth

Shortly before the 2025 MLB season began, it was announced that Kirk Gibson would no longer be part of the Detroit Tigers’ announce team. Months later, he discussed that decision.

In an interview with Tony Paul of The Detroit News, Gibson didn’t seem to have any regrets about moving on from announcing.

“I mean, I enjoyed some of the things, but I didn’t fit,” Gibson said, H/T Austin Konenski, Sportsnaut. “All things considered, I did what was right … One thing I learned through many people, mentors of mine along the way, was to take the high road … going back to [Sparky Anderson]. He called me out when I was young and said, ‘Can you take it!?’ I said, ‘Take what?’ He said, ‘Can you take it!?’ I said, ‘What are you talking about?’ He said, ‘Can you take it?’ … ‘Yeah, bring it on, I can [expletive] take it.’ He gave me many examples of taking it, just keeping your mouth shut for the team.”

It’s not as though things were going poorly in Detroit. On the field, the Tigers had one of their best seasons in a while in 2024. They went 86-76, posting a winning record for the first time since 2016 and making the playoffs for the first time since 2014. Things got a lot better in the booth, too. Awful Announcing readers ranked the Tigers as the 10th-best announce team in the league in 2024, which was play-by-play man Jason Benetti’s first year in Detroit. The Tigers have continued to have one of baseball’s most consistently entertaining announce crews in 2025.

Still, Gibson seems to feel that the time was right to move on.

“Things change over time, you know?” Gibson said. “You get older, you’ve gotta change if you’re going to be partners. You’ve gotta change if you’re going to make it work. I’ll just leave it at that.”