Tim Kurkjian

speaker

907 appearances 11 recordings 3 series first heard Nov 2024 last heard 15 Jul

Tim Kurkjian’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 5 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 2.

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The Dan Le Batard Show · The Big Suey: Buster Olney Looks Like… (feat. Tim Kurkjian) · 16 Apr 2025 podcast

But Joe Maurer did things that no catcher has ever done in the history of the sport when it comes to winning batting titles, all that stuff. So that's why I think he's a first ballot Hall of Famer. But again... I don't include first ballot. If he's a Hall of Famer, he's getting my vote. I don't care if it's the first ballot or the 10th. Wait a minute, though.

All right. I have some skills when it comes to that. Those are my only skills. But I'm telling you, Dan, it's a baseball thing. We have another segment on our show called I Am a Seam Head. The first guy who came on, Mark Simon, can tell you who made the last out of to end every World Series for the last 70 years.

The second guy was Judd Burch, who can name every umpire in the major leagues based on the uniform number on their jersey, which we didn't even know they had a uniform number. Then we had on Jeff Bennett, formerly of ESPN, who can tell you what every baseball card looks like from 1982 through 85. Front of the of the baseball card and back of the baseball card.

Birthplace, height, weight, Carly Ustremsky. I'm not making this up. And then we had a guy named Mike Pettica on last week. And you could go like this to Mike. He used to work for the Indians as an AP writer. 127 hits, 481 at bats, and in a matter of two seconds, he could figure that out in his head and give you the batting average.

These are what seam heads can do, and I maintain they're more in baseball than any other sport. So, yes, I have strange retention of things, but on things that are really important, I can't remember anything.

Just a useless stuff to know. But that's kind of the point. Baseball is pointless, and that's what makes it so interesting. So just the other day, the Rays scored one run in the first inning, four runs in the second inning, nine runs in the third inning against the Red Sox. So I checked with the people who could look this up.

It's the first time in Major League history that any team has ever scored one in the first, four in the second, nine in the third. We played 150 years. We played well over 200,000 games. And that first three line score had never happened in baseball history. It's pointless. It's useless. It's stupid. But people actually care about that stuff, including me. Tim, what's your son Jeff's birthday?

And his daughter was born on August 10th of 1993. She came a couple hours late. Otherwise, his daughter would have been born on his birthday on the night that Michael Lorenzen was pitching a no-hitter for the Phillies. Wow.

Dad and mom were watching the Phillies on the TV in the hospital room thinking our daughter's going to be born on daddy's birthday and the night that Michael Lorenzen threw a no-hitter. We just missed out on that. What was the umpire doing home plates and jersey number? I'm not kidding you.

This Judd Burch guy, you could ask him on a random Tuesday night, no matter where you are, doesn't matter who's working second base in Texas. And he would say Adrian Johnson. I tested him on it. He can do these things. Weird people exist in baseball. And that's another reason I love it. And I'm not apologizing for it.

Useless. Rusty Staub was a great cook, by the way. He used to pack his pots and pans with him on road trips. So if it was like a 10-day trip, he would get a hotel room that has like a stove and an oven, and he would take his own pots and pans and cook for himself on the road. Amazing.

I think that's what my father-in-law is doing. Buck Showalter once asked me – this is so typical Buck Showalter. He looks at me one night randomly and says, give me a great player who's got a lot of freckles. That's what he said to me. And I can't even – I've never been asked this question in my life, so I just reflectively said –

Rusty Staub, and he goes, I said a great player, not a really good player. He was angry that I guessed Rusty Staub. It was the best I could do. But imagine being asked by a former major league manager, who's the best player you've ever seen who has a lot of freckles? Wow. Didn't see it coming.

Buck is the same age as I am. I'm going to say it's late May of 1956. I'll be close on that. Can he really do this?

May 23rd, 1956.

Well, the industry has decided that first base is no longer an important offensive position. So we take Luis Arias, who I love, but Luis Arias is not a first baseman, but they put him at first base because it's the position he can play where he can play every single day. We've gotten away from the first baseman hitting a lot of home runs and driving and runs.

Instead, we mix and match, and we go put a lot of people over there who really aren't first baseman. Plus, the days of the left-handed, it's a left-hander's position, fellas. Trust me on that. The days of John Olerud are over, where you find a left-handed thrower who can hit, really play defense, and drive in runs. We don't care about that guy anymore at first base. The average...

The batting average for first baseman last year was the lowest since 1900. And the OPS was the lowest since 1968. And it's because the industry no longer values what a first baseman can bring, big time power. But they look, and with all the shifting, we need a really quick guy over there. We need somebody who can cover a lot of ground. And that's why Pete Alonzo took

all this time to just get a job because they looked at the body type, doesn't run very well, not a very good defensive player, only got a two-year deal, and he's off to a great start, by the way.

Ha ha! Oh, God. We have Mel. Get this. We have Mel on our podcast next week on the day before the draft to talk to him about baseball. The best Mel Kiper, Dan, looks like, you remember, he looks what? Like the eagle who protects the young eagles. I'm pretty close on that. The protective eagle, Mel Kiper. How great is that?

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