August 12, 2024
Joe Rondone/The Republic; USA TODAY NETWORK
Phillies broadcaster John Kruk was featured during the latest episode of 'Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.' The comedian included snippets of Kruk's best off-topic stories.
When John Kruk is on the mic during a Phillies game, fans never know what might come out of his mouth. The color commentator has a knack for weaving tales of prison baseball games and ruminations on chest hair into the action.
Many Phillies fans already admire Kruk's unique contributions to the broadcasts on NBC Sports Philadelphia and NBC, but John Oliver's episode of "Last Week Tonight" on Sunday included a montage that introduced Kruk's off-topic anecdotes to a different audience during the show's "And Now This" segment.
The clips were introduced as "The Delightfully Bizarre Musings of Phillies Color Commentator John Kruk."
John Kruk montage at the end of Last Week Tonight pic.twitter.com/YLcx2bm3mF
— Nick Piccone (@_piccone) August 12, 2024
"You know, I was thinking about this today now that we have some time," Kruk begins in the first video. "Why aren't we born with hair on our chest as men? ... Why does it wait 'til like you're 16, 17, 18, 20, whatever, and then it starts growing? Were those follicles dormant?"
In another clip, the former Phillies star tells of prohibiting his kids from watching the cartoon "Caillou," explaining "all that kid did was complain," and of seeing a "dang giraffe" appear outside his window while he was staying at Animal Kingdom in Walt Disney World. Most of his rants are met with laughter or incredulous responses from Phillies play-by-play announcer Tom McCarthy, who told the MLB Network in May that Kruk's stories leave him "in awe like everyone else."
Oliver ends the montage with the best Kruk story in recent memory – his account of a baseball game he once played against a prison team. Kruk says he admired the pitcher's arm, and asked the catcher about him. He was shocked by what he found out.
"I asked the catcher, I said, 'What did he do?'" Kruk recalls. "He goes, 'Oh he found his girlfriend cheating, he burned up her car with her and her boyfriend in it.' Very uncomfortable at bat."
Kruk — whom NBC Sports Philadelphia reporter Taryn Hatcher has described as "genuinely the most fascinating person I have ever met or heard of" — captivated audiences before he transitioned into broadcasting after his baseball career ended in the mid-1990s. In 1993, the year he helped the Phillies make the World Series, he charmed David Letterman by describing his aversion to running the bases at the Colorado Rockies stadium, where there was "no air." His dry humor (and unkempt appearance) also inspired the "Philadelphia Slobs" sketch on "SNL" that same year, with Chris Farley portraying the Krukker.
Sunday's "Last Week Tonight" episode will be available to be streamed on Max later this week, but Kruk's "delightfully bizarre musings" should return Tuesday night when the Phillies are back home (Kruk only travels with the broadcast team to a very limited number of road games) to play the Miami Marlins.
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