John Kruk left ESPN at the end of the season when his contract was up. Matt Stairs left the CSNPhilly broadcast crew at the end of the season when he was hired to be the Phillies hitting coach. Ergo, CSN’s Jim Salisbury reports, Kruk will join the team’s television broadcast crew on CSNPhilly during the 2017 season.
Not a bad move, both for Kruk and for Phillies fans. Kruk wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea while he was with ESPN, but he was always affable and he was way, way better when he was not a merely joking around and reminiscing with Curt Schilling as opposed to talking about the game at hand. Doing a game night-in-night-out as opposed to weekly will will likely curtail his generalist tendencies and even if he does reminisce a bit more, it’s more appropriate for a local broadcast for the team for which he starred than it was for a national broadcast.
In other news, if this pattern holds up, Rico Brogna, Jim Thome and Ryan Howard are next in line to be Phillies commentators.