Tim Kurkjian | |
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 Kurkjian in 2011 | |
| Born | (1956-12-10)December 10, 1956 (age 68) Bethesda, Maryland, U.S. |
| Education | University of Maryland, College Park (B.A.) |
| Occupations |
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| Spouse | Kathy Kurkjian |
| Children | 2 |
| Relatives | Stephen Kurkjian (cousin) |
| Awards | BBWAA Career Excellence Award (2022) |
Tim Kurkjian (/ˈkɜːrkdʒən/; born December 10, 1956)[1] is aMajor League Baseball (MLB)analyst onESPN'sBaseball Tonight andSportsCenter. He is also a contributor toESPN The Magazine andESPN.com.
On December 7, 2021, Kurkjian was named the recipient of theBBWAA Career Excellence Award for2022, presented annually by theBaseball Writers' Association of America and officially awarded during induction ceremonies for theBaseball Hall of Fame.[2]
Kurkjian was born inBethesda, Maryland, to Badrig "Jeff" Kurkjian, amathematician, and Joyce "Joy" Kurkjian.[1] Badrig's parents settled inWatertown, Massachusetts, after theArmenian genocide, while Joyce was born in England.[1] Badrig was astatistician who earned degrees fromMassachusetts Institute of Technology,George Washington andAmerican Universities, taught at theUniversity of Alabama, was the chief mathematician for theUnited States Army Materiel Command and was a fellow with theAmerican Statistical Association.[3] He was also an avidbaseball fan who instilled in his son his love of both the sport and of statistics from a young age.[1] According to Kurkjian, his family constantly talked and thought about baseball.[4] Both of Kurkjian's older brothers playedcollege baseball for theCatholic University Cardinals and were inducted into that school's athletics hall of fame.[5] In his youth, in addition to playing baseball, young Kurkjian collectedbaseball cards, playedtabletop baseball games and read anything baseball-related that he could.[6]
Kurkjian attendedWalter Johnson High School in Bethesda, where he played on the school'sbasketball and baseball teams.[4] At the suggestion of his basketball coach,[7] Kurkjian began writing for thestudent newspaper,The Pitch, and the school'syearbook, "The Wind-up."[6] He eventually became the sports editor ofThe Pitch and realized thatjournalism would be the surest means of fulfilling his childhood dream of making a living in professional sports. He graduated from the school in 1974.[7]
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 theStar folded that year, he took a position with theBaltimore News-American. That paper also went out of business within two months of Kurkjian's arrival.[7] He began covering baseball as theTexas Rangers beat writer forThe Dallas Morning News[8] where he worked from 1981 to 1985. Kurkjian then covered theBaltimore Orioles forThe Baltimore Sun beginning in 1986, where he met and had a competitive rivalry with fellow baseball writerKen Rosenthal. He was a senior writer forSports Illustrated from 1989 to 1997.[7] In 1997,Sports Illustrated reassigned 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.[6]
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 Baseball in 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 Kruk were 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.[9] Some of the players that did this wereTim Dillard[10] of theBrewers,J. P. Arencibia[11] of the Rangers, andElliot Johnson[12] of theRays.
Kurkjian is a regular correspondent onESPN Radio; he was frequently featured on the formerSVP & Russillo show hosted byScott Van Pelt andRyen 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 theESPN website.[13] Since Van Pelt's departure from his radio slot to anchor the late nightSportsCenter show, 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 Series postseason game between theHouston Astros[14] andMinnesota Twins[15] alongside play-by-play announcerKarl Ravech and 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.[16]
Since 2014, Kurkjian has traveled to South Williamsport PA each August to provide analysis during ESPN's coverage of the Little League World Series. He shares facts, like the catcher and first baseman use mitts while the other players use gloves, and frequently reminds viewers that children should be encouraged to play multiple sports because playing a variety of sports makes children better at each of the different sports.
On November 26, 1983, Kurkjian married Kathleen Patrick.[citation needed] Kathy is a lawyer.[1] The couple has one daughter, Kelly, a creative director at a marketing agency, and one son, Jeff, who co-hosts The Andie Summers Show onWXTU radio inPhiladelphia. Both Kelly and Jeff graduated fromSyracuse University.[7] His cousins arePulitzer Prize-winning journalistStephen Kurkjian and Bob Kurkjian, an engineering teacher at the Learning Prep School in West Newton, MA.[17]
Tim's son, Jeff Kurkjian, hosts a podcast titledIs This A Great Game, Or What? Tim is a cohost on the podcast, which as of November 2025 has approximately 3,063 subscribers and averages 500-700 views per video. On the November 4, 2025 episode of the podcast, Tim commented that his favorite hotel in Toronto is now the BISHA Luxury Collection Hotel. Eduardo at the front desk maintains a supply of Diet Mountain Dew, which is presumably a favorite of Tim's.[18]
On every day of theMajor League Baseball season, from 1990 through 2009, Kurkjian cut every MLBbox score out 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.[19]
Tim Kurkjian.
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