John Kruk “The Mullet Gives You Permission”
In 1972, after years of avoidance and denials, President Richard Nixon made a diplomatic visit to mainland China where he finally, formally recognized the Communist government. Conventional wisdom suggested that only Richard Nixon, with his unimpeachable anti-communist bona fides could have made such a conciliatory move. If, say, liberal Senator George McGovern had recognized the enemy, it would have been perceived as traitorous. But not so with Nixon — what might have been seen as weakness from anyone was presented as a moment of strength because of what Nixon signified.
In the case of Nixon and China, for the truth to be heard, a very specific messenger was required. Twenty-one years later, baseball got its Nixon and China moment when John Kruk faced Randy Johnson at Camden Yards in the third-inning of the 1993 All-Star Game. In his legendary if swift at bat, Kruk revealed a truth that had been suppressed for years and which Kruk alone could effectively convey.
John Martin Kruk was born in Charleston, West Virginia in 1961. And while his family moved away for a chunk of his childhood, no one apparently told that to Kruk’s body or hair. Rocking the most glorious wavy mullet in baseball, the “Ruthian” Kruk was officially listed as 5’10 and 170 lbs. This, of course, was insane (for frame of reference, the lithe Japanese slugger, Ichiro Suzuki, is listed as weighing 175 lbs.). Kruk could have been eighty pounds heavier. He ate and drank prodigiously. Barry Bonds once quipped about him “I think he’s a good role model. He gets to bring the hillbillies back into the game.” Andy Van Slyke agreed: “John Kruk’d be the one guy I’d pay for of any player in the big leagues to see, ’cause he’d be like the truck driver, delivery beer guy who somehow slipped past security and put a uniform on.” He looked like a kinder, more genial and — honestly — less physically fit Kenny Powers.
Over the course of his incredible ten year MLB career, Kruk embraced this image as the blue-collar hero. Perhaps apocryphally, when a female fan chastised him for being an athlete who smoke and drank and gorged, he once responded, “I ain’t an athlete, lady. I’m a baseball player.” In fact, he used that for the title of the autobiography he published in 1994 while still with the Philadelphia Phillies: “I Ain’t an Athlete.”
But here’s the thing: Kruk was an athlete — an exceptional one. A .300 career hitter, Kruk was a three time National League All-Star at first base. Despite his frame, he started his career as an outfielder and had multiple double-digit stolen base seasons. But, the way he looked and carried himself dominated the public’s understanding of him. He was the guy who waded out of his West Virginia hot-tub in a swimsuit and boots to shoot a buck that had wandered into his yard. John Kruk was a dude. He was a dude from Appalachia. There was no ambiguity: John Kruk was a man’s man.
Which is precisely why his at-bat against the 6 ft-10, flame-throwing (if still erratic) Randy “Big Unit” Johnson is a seminal cultural event. Kruk entered the batter’s box for what should have been an irrelevant and fun third-inning appearance in a game that doesn’t matter. On the mound was baseball’s most intimidating and hardest throwing pitcher. Johnson threw so hard (and without any glimpse of mercy) that he once exploded a bird that mistakenly got in the way of his fastball. But, that really shouldn’t have mattered because it was an All-Star game and it was for fun and everyone understood that.
Everyone, apparently, except for Johnson, who started his wind-up and released a 98mph rising laser beam that buzzed Kruk’s helmet. What Kruk did next, however, was more remarkable — and something that only he could have done: he showed fear. Abject fear. He made it eminently, publicly clear what it feels like to have a 98mph laser beam sail over your head. He dashed out of the batter’s box and started fluttering his hand over his chest like he was having heart palpitations. He exhaled deeply and grinned, telling the world, “Holy shit, that was absolutely terrifying.”
Kruk did not hide the fact that he was frightened out of his mind to have Randy Johnson throw things fast at him. For the next two pitches, Kruk appeared to say “no, thank you” and left the batter’s box as the pitch departed Johnson’s hand. On the third and final pitch—an off-speed pitch—Kruk spun around three times as he flailed at the pitch as though his body was literally taking him away from the danger and towards the dugout. Kruk had no embarrassment about the fact that he was terrified to face that “scary dude” on the mound. “I was in survival mode… I just wanted to get out there alive.” He explained it afterwards when being interviewed: “I don't care what he was throwing, he wasn't going to hit me. I was running. If he was going to hit me he was going to have to hit a moving target.”
The announcers, the players and the crowd laughed genially with Kruk. My supposition, however, is that it was because Kruk — the portly, mullet-wearing, beer-drinking, All-American regular guy — had permission to show something that’s universal to baseball: fear. I’m not certain there would have been the same generosity if Kruk grew up in Connecticut and went to Stanford or if he was a matinee idol like Jim Palmer. Kruk could acknowledge reality for the same reason that Nixon could: his biography permitted it.
In many ways, It’s amazing that Kruk’s honesty was unique. In 1920, before helmets, Yankee hurler Carl Mays killed Indians’ shortstop Ray Chapman with a rising fastball that made a sound so loud people thought it had hit the bat. In 1984, Dickie Thon’s orbital bone (and career) was shattered when he was hit in the eye. In 2012, pitcher Brandon McCarthy had two hours of brain surgery after a comebacker nailed him in the side of the head. Yet, growing up I was always told (and I’ve told my own son): “Don’t be afraid of the ball.”
When I was about ten — maybe five years or so prior to that ’93 A.S.G. — there was a rumor circulating through my little league that the fastest pitcher in the league hit a kid in the face from a different elementary school and “tore his lip off.” I 100% believed it without any visual confirmation. And it shook me. As much as I loved baseball, I also suspected that there was something insane about letting a kid that probably had some difficulty pouring milk into his cereal throw a ball at me as hard as he could. Soon after I caught wind of the lip massacre rumor, in subsequent games, I began to step out of the batters box, reflexively presaging what Kruk had done against The Big Unit. In response to my bailing out, I was subjected to that seminal baseball cliche: “Don’t be afraid of the ball.”
But why not? Shouldn’t I be? John Kruk was and he once killed a deer while wearing nothing but a bathing suit and a mullet.
by Kevin Blake