April 11, 1994: John Kruk plays first game for Phillies since cancer surgery

John Kruk was shirtless in the Philadelphia Phillies clubhouse. This was nothing new. What was new was the custom T-shirt in his hands. He held it high so teammate Darren Daulton could read its red-lettered inscription: “If I can’t play in the game, I’ll take my ball and go home.”1

It would take more than the radiation Kruk had received earlier that morning for testicular cancer – his 16th of 18 five-day-a-week rounds – to sideline him that afternoon.2 After all, this was the day of his team’s 1994 home opener, the day he and others on the defending National League champions were to get their commemorative rings.

The eight-year veteran had sailed through his rehab stint the previous week with Double-A Reading, going 3-for-9 in three games. He spent more than 10 uninterrupted minutes in the manager’s office, telling skipper Jim Fregosi, general manager Lee Thomas, and team physician Phillip Marone that he was ready.3

But Kruk had yet to assure the bosses that this should be the day. He saw the board where Fregosi had posted the game’s tentative starting nine. He still didn’t see his name.

So he took the lineup into his own hands. He grabbed his nameplate and slid it into his usual third slot. And sure enough, nobody removed it.4 “The concern was if I played one game and then I couldn’t play for two-three days,” he said later. “I had to convince them to let them know that I didn’t think it would be any problem. They bit.”5 He was in.

The sellout crowd of 58,627 prepared a hero’s welcome for the Phillies player who had built his legend around a less-than-superhero-like image. Indeed, he seldom shaved his goatee or combed his mullet.6 His weight and willingness to laugh at himself drew comparisons to Chris Farley, the heavy-set Saturday Night Live star who had portrayed him on television the previous fall.7 He had told late-night host David Letterman in 1993 about the time he traded jersey number 28 to reliever Mitch “Wild Thing” Williams for two cases of beer.8

Word of mouth furthered Kruk’s mystique. Clubhouse aides recalled that he often left half-eaten sandwiches near his locker and dropped dirty laundry on his way to the shower, clothes that fellow infielder Mariano Duncan figured he had bought at Kmart.9 According to longtime teammate Randy Ready, Kruk once responded to a woman who had told him his ways were unbecoming to a professional athlete: “I ain’t an athlete, lady. I’m a baseball player.”10 All those reasons and more inspired scribe Paul Hagen to call him “the kind of guy you might just run into at a rest stop on the Jersey Turnpike.”11 Translation: Krukker and his blue-collar fan base were one.

Veterans Stadium got louder in anticipation. In a pregame ceremony, public address announcer Dan Baker reintroduced more than two dozen 1993 Phillies players and coaches who were still on the roster. The starting lineup alone consisted exclusively of returning names, raising hopes that ’94 would go just as well if not better. By the time Lenny Dykstra, Duncan, Dave Hollins, Daulton, Jim Eisenreich, Milt Thompson, and Kevin Stocker took the field to get their rings, Baker had only one name left to say.

“Batting third!”

That utterance alone brought the volume to its peak.

“A three-time All-Star who went .348 with 4 RBIs in the World Series, welcome back number 29, first baseman John Kruk!”

And out Kruk came. He hustled from the dugout onto the turf and claimed his jewelry. His scrappy cohorts were already standing on the first-base line, reaching out their hands for high- and low-fives. He reciprocated all the way down, toward the position soon to be his again. Cheers continued throughout. “That was a nice thing,” he said afterward. “It was real nice, and I really appreciate it.”12

When the game started about 15 minutes later, neither Kruk nor his crew had time to rest on the previous year’s laurels. The visiting Colorado Rockies, an expansion club that had lost 95 times in their inaugural 1993 season and had begun ’94 with three straight home losses to the Phillies, pounced on a first-inning error by shortstop Stocker. A double by defending NL batting champion Andrés Galarraga scored catcher Joe Girardi to give Colorado a 1-0 lead. Philadelphia starter Danny Jackson faced an early deficit.

Kruk had a chance to even the score soon enough. He came to bat in the bottom of the first inning against Mike Harkey, a former Chicago Cub whose injuries had hampered efforts to replicate a promising 1990 rookie season. After Duncan hit a one-out single, Kruk sent him home with a liner into the right-center-field gap. As the ball rolled to the wall, Kruk pulled into second base with a game-tying stand-up double. Phillies fans remained standing and clapping.

Even then, while on second base, the object of the crowd’s excitement found something to poke at himself over. He later admitted feeling unprepared for that resurgence of applause. “I didn’t know whether to tip my hat or stand there and be stupid,” he told a postgame reporter. “So I just decided on standing there and being stupid.”13

Kruk didn’t stay on second for long. The next hitter, Hollins, brought him home with a double down the right-field line. Eisenreich followed up with his own double, putting Philadelphia up 3-1 in the first.

The lead didn’t last. Colorado tied things up in the third by scoring on a passed ball and a sacrifice fly respectively. A sixth-inning single to left by Howard Johnson drove in a former Phil, Charlie Hayes, who had gotten on base on an error by second baseman Duncan. A grounder by Roberto Mejía scored Ellis Burks to give the visitors a 5-3 edge.

Kruk rescued Philadelphia twice more. In the bottom of the sixth, his single gave way to Daulton’s three-run homer to put the Phillies on top, 6-5. After a seventh-inning error by third baseman Hollins and a double by Dante Bichette led Colorado to tie yet again, he delivered his second single of the game; the hit moved Dykstra to third and enabled Hollins to break the draw with a sacrifice fly.

The final score, however, did not go the home team’s way. Reliever Roger Mason walked Girardi in the eighth, which allowed Bichette to reclaim Colorado’s lead with a two-run home run. In the bottom of the inning, a fly ball by Stocker fell just feet short of being a game-tying homer. Rockies closer Darren Holmes – who had blown save opportunities against the Phillies in both of the season’s first two games – threw a hitless ninth for his first save of the season. Former Phillie Bruce Ruffin pocketed a win, as Mason took the loss. Philadelphia’s 8-7 defeat dipped the team below .500 for the first time since 1992.

But Kruk’s 3-for-5 outing gave the Phillies a personal victory that even Colorado could appreciate. “Kruk’s not only a great player,” Girardi told a Denver newspaper after the last out. “He’s an important character for this game. A lot of people in this world look at him and can’t believe what he does. He doesn’t look like a player. He looks like a nonathlete. But he’s unbelievable.”14 Denver Post columnist Mark Kiszla wrote in a column the next morning: “Without really trying, Kruk was showing us how to deal with cancer. He’s trying his best to ignore the damn disease and move on.”15

Even the gruffer Phils couldn’t help but smile. Mason told reporters after the game that his teammate’s return “should be the ingredient we need.”16 Said Daulton: “He’s a great first baseman, a great hitter, and he is a very big part of our team. We need him in there.”17

The gratitude was mutual. “The guys in Reading were great, but they aren’t Dykstra, Daulton, or Hollins,” Kruk said before letting out a chuckle. “I just missed the male bonding.”18

He had one more male to thank. Had Mitch Williams not misplayed a toss to first in July 1993, the ball never would have bounced up from the grass and whacked the first baseman in the crotch. Kruk said that had the ball never hit him, he might never have asked the doctor about the nagging pain that indicated cancer. Williams had been traded to the Houston Astros before the 1994 season, but Kruk still considered his pal a “hero.”19 “I never thought I’d say it, but now I couldn’t be happier that Mitch made that throw,” he wrote in an autobiography released that year. “What can you say when the best thing that ever happened to you is getting hit in the nuts?”20

The following months brought more health battles. Though Kruk’s cancer stayed in remission, his pain lingered. He missed more than 30 games between mid-April and mid-August, largely due to discomfort in both knees.21 He finished 1994 with a solid .302 batting average, but the Phillies were in fourth place in the NL East when a players strike ended the season in August.

The ’95 season was the last for the 34-year-old Kruk. At a time when the NL did not allow designated hitters,22 he switched to the DH-friendly American League’s Chicago White Sox. He hit .348 before the All-Star break but struggled entering the year’s second half. After a 0-for-14 slump, he decided to make July 30 the day of his final game. He waited until he got a hit, which came in the first inning, before taking the game ball and going home to West Virginia.23

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Thomas J. Brown Jr. and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted a recording of PRISM Sports’ telecast of the game, as available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrbUqK3FfF4&t=13298s.

The author also used Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org for the box score and other material.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/PHI/PHI199404110.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1994/B04110PHI1994.htm

Notes

1 Kruk was diagnosed with testicular cancer on March 7, 1994, and had his right testicle removed the following day. Information regarding Kruk’s diagnosis, treatment, and T-shirt comes from David Nakamura, “Kruk Comes Back with Three Hits; Doubles in First At-Bat Since Cancer Surgery,” Washington Post, April 12, 1994: D01.

2 Kruk completed his 18-round treatment later that week. Nakamura.

3 Information on the doctors’ initial projections comes from Paul Hagen, “Phils Have Missed Kruk,” Philadelphia Daily News, April 11, 1994: 91. Details on his pregame conversation with management come from Jayson Stark, “Phils’ Kruk Welcomed Back Where He Belongs,” Philadelphia Inquirer, April 12, 1994: A1.

4 Shortly after Kruk inserted the nameplate, Thomas started sliding it out but changed his mind. Associated Press, “Kruk Makes Up for Lost Time,” Las Vegas Review-Journal, April 12, 1994: 1E.

5 “Kruk Makes Up for Lost Time.”

6 Kruk wrote in his autobiography, “I brush my teeth and all, but combing my hair? That’s why I have a lot of hats.” John Kruk with Paul Hagen, ‘I Ain’t an Athlete, Lady…’: My Well-Rounded Life and Times (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994), 44.

7 For NBC’s Saturday Night Live, Farley impersonated Kruk twice over the course of October 1993. The sketches are available at “Anne Murray Cold Opening – Saturday Night Live,” YouTube video (Saturday Night Live), 1:54, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlCh-u3ntis; and “Philadelphia Slobs – Saturday Night Live,” YouTube video (Saturday Night Live), 1:51, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kC9EBwTz_g. Accessed August 2024.

8 A clip of Kruk’s October 20, 1993, appearance on CBS’s The Late Show with David Letterman is available at “Kruk: ‘I’m Not Running,’” Facebook video (Phillies Fan Club), 5:44, https://www.facebook.com/philliesfanclub/videos/kruk-im-not-runninga-little-john-kruk-and-letterman-is-always-a-good-mixturephil/1739253312973493/. Accessed August 2024.

9 Bob Gordon and Tom Burgoyne, More Than Beards, Bellies, and Biceps: The Story of the 1993 Phillies (and the

Phillie Phanatic Too) (New York: Sports Publishing, 2013), 123.

10 Kruk, ‘I Ain’t an Athlete, Lady…,’ 99.

11 Introduction by Hagen for Kruk, ‘I Ain’t an Athlete, Lady…,’ 11.

12 Associated Press, “Rockies’ Bichette Silences Phils with Game-Winning Homer,” Salt Lake Tribune, April 12, 1994: D4.

13 Hal Bodley, “Kruk’s a Hit in His Return to Phillies,” USA Today, April 12, 1994: 03C.

14 Mark Kiszla, “Phils’ Lovable Kruk Strikes a Blow for the Common Man,” Denver Post: 1D, 5D.

15 Kiszla.

16 Associated Press, “Kruk Makes Up for Lost Time.”

17 Don Bostrom, “Kruk a Big Hit in His Return,” Allentown (Pennsylvania) Morning Call, April 12, 1994: C01.

18 Peter Schmuck, “Kruk’s Opener: A Day to Cheer,” Baltimore Sun, April 12, 1994: 1C. See also Nakamura, “Kruk Comes Back with Three Hits.”

19 Kruk, ‘I Ain’t an Athlete, Lady…,’ 255.

20 Kruk, ‘I Ain’t an Athlete, Lady…,’ 255.

21 Frank Fitzpatrick, “Kruk and Other Phils Bid Early Farewells,” Philadelphia Inquirer, August 8, 1994: E5.

22 Designated hitters did not appear in any regular-season National League games until 1997, when interleague play was introduced. Major League Baseball did not incorporate a universal DH rule until 2022.

23 Paul Sullivan, “Kruk Ducks Out of Game, Baseball,” Chicago Tribune, July 31, 1995: 31.