Phillies fans were going wild at Citizens Bank Park on Friday on a beautiful night for baseball in South Philadelphia. And that was long before the first pitch was even thrown. Legendary mullet-rocker, chew-spitter, and sweet-swinging Phillies first baseman John Kruk was inducted into the Phillies Wall of Fame prior to the game.
Kruk was greeted to tremendous applause, mostly because he absolutely knows how to relate to Philadelphia fans, but also how to stroke our egos just a bit.
After his 1993 teammate Dutch Daulton gave a somewhat awkward speech about how the two players both enjoyed a few cocktails the first night they met in spring training down in Florida -- separately, I might add -- and then woke up at 6:00 am the next day, Kruk took to the podium on the pitcher's mound at CBP and thanked Phillies fans for an amazing ride.
Stay in the game with the latest updates on your beloved Philadelphia sports teams! Sign up here for our All Access Daily newsletter.
Kruk started out, quite sincerely it appeared, by telling Philadelphia simply that "this is the greatest place I've ever been."
We won't spoil the whole thing for you in case you haven't seen it yet, but he finished by commenting on players who complained about the attitude of the always cordial Philly fans.
"You hear players, media people, say that it's tough to play in Philly in front of these fans, to those people I say: you didn't have the guts to succeed here!," Kruk said to raucous applause.
What was your favorite line from Kruk's speech? Or do you not have enough brain cells to answer?