Tim Kurkjian

Tim Kurkjian
Kurkjian in March 2011
Born	(1956-12-10)December 10, 1956 Bethesda, Maryland,U.S.
Education	University of Maryland, College Park Walter Johnson High School
Occupation(s)	Sports columnist Author Television personality
Spouse	Kathy Kurkjian
Children	2
Relatives	Stephen Kurkjian(cousin)
Awards	BBWAA Career Excellence Award(2022)

Tim Kurkjian(/ˈkɜːrkdʒən/;born December 10, 1956)is aMajor League Baseball(MLB)analystonESPN'sBaseball TonightandSportsCenter.He is also a contributor toESPN The MagazineandESPN.com.

On December 7, 2021, Kurkjian was named the recipient of theBBWAA Career Excellence Awardfor2022,presented annually by theBaseball Writers' Association of Americaand officially awarded during induction ceremonies for theBaseball Hall of Fame.

Family and early life

Kurkjian was born inBethesda, Maryland,to Badrig "Jeff" Kurkjian, amathematician,and Joyce "Joy" Kurkjian.Badrig's parents settled inWatertown, Massachusetts,after theArmenian genocide,while Joyce was born in England.Badrig was astatisticianwho earned degrees fromMassachusetts Institute of Technology,George WashingtonandAmerican Universities,taught at theUniversity of Alabama,was the chief mathematician for theUnited States Army Materiel Commandand was a fellow with theAmerican Statistical Association.He was also an avidbaseballfan who instilled in his son his love of both the sport and of statistics from a young age.According to Kurkjian, his family constantly talked and thought about baseball.Both of Kurkjian's older brothers playedcollege baseballfor theCatholic University Cardinalsand were inducted into that school's athletics hall of fame.In his youth, in addition to playing baseball, young Kurkjian collectedbaseball cards,playedtabletopbaseball games and read anything baseball-related that he could.

Kurkjian attendedWalter Johnson High Schoolin Bethesda, where he played on the school'sbasketballand baseball teams.At the suggestion of his basketball coach,Kurkjian began writing for thestudent newspaper,The Pitch,and the school'syearbook,"The Wind-up."He eventually became the sports editor ofThe Pitchand realized thatjournalismwould be the surest means of fulfilling his childhood dream of making a living in professional sports. He graduated from the school in 1974.

Journalism career

In 1974, Kurkjian enrolled at theUniversity of Maryland'sPhilip Merrill College of Journalism.While at Maryland, Kurkjian covered high school sports for his hometown newspaper, theMontgomery Journal.Immediately after graduating from Maryland with aB.A.in journalism in 1978, Kurkjian took an entry-level position with theWashington Star.By 1981, he became a staff writer. When theStarfolded that year, he took a position with theBaltimore News-American.That paper also went out of business within two months of Kurkjian's arrival.He began covering baseball as theTexas Rangersbeat writer forThe Dallas Morning Newswhere he worked from 1981 to 1985. Kurkjian then covered theBaltimore OriolesforThe Baltimore Sunbeginning in 1986. He was a senior writer forSports Illustratedfrom 1989 to 1997.In 1997,Sports Illustratedreassigned him to covering basketball. He served in this capacity for six months before accepting a job at ESPN as a baseball writer and television journalist in 1998 at 40 years old.

He authored his first book,America's Game,in 2000 and released his second book,Is This a Great Game, or What?: From A-Rod's Heart to Zim's Head—My 25 Years in Baseballin May 2007. In 2016, he published his bookI'm Fascinated by Sacrifice Flies: Inside the Game We All Love.He was the 1999, 2007, and 2023 Commencement speaker at his alma mater, Walter Johnson High School, the 2008 speaker atSeneca Valley High School,and also delivered the winter commencement speech at the University of Maryland on December 19, 2007.

In 2012, while Kurkjian and fellow ESPN analystJohn Krukwere on their annual bus tour around the spring training facilities, a new craze was created called Kurkjianing where players would impersonate Tim Kurkjian during interviews.Some of the players that did this wereTim Dillardof theBrewers,J. P. Arencibiaof the Rangers, andElliot Johnsonof theRays.

Kurkjian is a regular correspondent onESPN Radio;he was frequently featured on the formerSVP & Russilloshow hosted byScott Van PeltandRyen Russillo.One element of this that has proved popular with listeners is when Van Pelt reads out names of American sports stars in a comedicBaltimore accent,often making Kurkjian crease with laughter. Examples can be found on theESPNwebsite.Since Van Pelt's departure from his radio slot to anchor the late nightSportsCentershow, the mantle of making Kurkjian laugh has been taken up byThe Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz,which uses its meme of people in the sports world, be they players, coaches or officials, who look like non-sporting people in mundane or ridiculous situations.

On September 29, 2020, Kurkjian helped commentate theAmerican League Wild Card Seriespostseason game between theHouston AstrosandMinnesota Twinsalongside play-by-play announcerKarl Ravechand analystEduardo Pérez.Airing onABC,the game marked the first time that the network broadcast a Major League Baseball game since Game 5 of the1995 World Series.

Personal life

On November 26, 1983, Kurkjian married Kathleen Patrick.Kathy is a lawyer.The couple has one daughter, Kelly, a creative director at a marketing agency, and one son, Jeff, who co-hosts The Andie Summers Show onWXTUradio inPhiladelphia.Both Kelly and Jeff graduated fromSyracuse University.His cousins arePulitzer Prize-winning journalistStephen Kurkjianand Bob Kurkjian, an engineering teacher at the Learning Prep School in West Newton, MA.

On every day of theMajor League Baseballseason, from 1990 through 2009, Kurkjian cut every MLBbox scoreout of a newspaper and taped them into a spiral notebook. Kurkjian estimates that this daily task, at 15 minutes per day over 20 seasons, consumed 40 days of his life. He stopped doing this due to the lack of newspapers printing box scores.

External links

• Tim KurkjianBBWAA Career Excellence Award biography at the National Baseball Hall of Fame
• Tim Kurkjian's ESPN Bio