© Ron Chenoy-USA TODAY Sports
On Wednesday, San Francisco Giants play-by-play man Duane Kuiper joined Murph & Mac to talk all things Giants baseball, from potential rule changes to the impact Bryce Harper is having on the team, whether they sign him or not.
As with every offseason the past couple of years, there are suggestions for fixing the omnipresent “pace of play” issue that looms over the game of baseball. This spring, the idea of shrinking the strike-zone, using robot umpires, and moving the mound back a couple of inches have been suggested to test out in the minor leagues, and Kuiper had a couple of words for the proposed moves.
“If they move the mound, I’ll quit,” Kuiper said emphatically. “So will a lot of people. I mean, come on. You’re messing with the mound? It’s like the pace of the game. We’re going to try to change all these things for what? Five minutes? So instead of having it be three hours and five minutes, we want to get it to three hours. I mean that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. Let ’em play! I get what their doing; they don’t want it to get to 3:10 or 3:15, I get all that. But let’s not get really goofy over this stuff for five minutes.”
One thing Kuip is not upset with, however, is the influx of new faces in the Giants clubhouse. Gerardo Parra is one of many in the cavalcade of minor-league contract signee, and Kuiper, for one, is happy he doesn’t have to see him in another jersey this season.
“He’s one of those guys when you see him in other teams and in other uniforms, and the Giants have seen him a lot, and you don’t like him.” Kuiper said. “He’s got a little bit of an attitude, he pumps his fists, and you’re like, “I don’t like that guy!” And then when he puts on a Giants uniform, you say, ‘What a great guy!”‘
Parra in a recent interview with Murph & Mac said that he used to not like playing the Giants because he never knew if the player was running home, or if it was former Giants third-base coach Tim Flannery. Kuiper recalls a conversation with Mike Krukow about the old coach.
“Mike Krukow and I always thought there was going to come a time when Flannery, when he was running down the line, was going to forget that he was 55 years old and not a player anymore, and he was gonna slide into home,” he said.
“You lose a guy like that, and things just aren’t the same, although I will tell you this: Ron Wotus has been fabulous. There hasn’t been any drawbacks to when Flannery decided to retire, other than the fact you lose Tim Flannery’s attitude.”
Finally, Kuip had to give his obligatory Bryce Harper take, and frankly, he’s getting tired of all the speculation.
“The only news you’re gonna get is ‘someone is flying into Vegas, and somebody’s flying out of Vegas,’ and I guess after a while you start getting tired of it. I was tired of it about two months ago, but this is Scott Boras.”
Kuip added what signing, or not signing Harper is going to mean for this Giants ball-club.
“When Harper decides what he’s going to do,” Kuip said, “whether he decides to or not, there’s going to be other people coming into camp. It may be by way of a trade; you may lose a bullpen guy. But what you see right now, I really believe it may not be the outfield you’re seeing. It’s hard because there’s a lot of tough choices to make, but it’s a tough league.”
To listen to this entire interview and more, listen HERE:
