Dieter Kurtenbach: Mike Krukow taught fans how to love baseball. Replacing him is impossible.

Mike Krukow didn’t just broadcast San Francisco Giants games over the last four decades; he defined what it meant to love baseball.

So when news broke Thursday that the legend would retire from the booth at the end of this season, it didn’t just feel like the end of an era; it felt like a gut-punch.

No, scratch that — it was a “shinburger” on a 0-2 count.

Because while the Giants have been wandering through the wasteland, trying to find an identity in the decade-plus post-titles, Kruk and partner Duane Kuiper kept us coming back to the black and orange night after night.

They were the best company that any baseball fan could ask for, and having Krukow off the airwaves hurts worse than any late-inning bullpen collapse ever could.

I didn’t discover Krukow through the booming radio waves or as the background noise on a Bay Area summer night.

I found him the way millions of now-thirty-something sports dorks across the world did: through EA Sports’ MVP Baseball.

Back then, I was just a kid in the Midwest holding a plastic controller, listening to Kruk and Kuip call my virtual games with buddies.

And while most video game announcers sound like canned robots reading a phone book, Kruk and Kuip sounded like two best friends sitting on lawn chairs, cracking jokes and occasionally watching a baseball game break out.

It was infectious.

Because having Krukow on the call wasn’t just a broadcast. No, it was the ultimate advertisement for the West Coast lifestyle.

And nothing promoted the prestige of the San Francisco Giants better.

I’d sit in my basement or a dorm room and Kruk’s voice sent a message: Get to California.

I wish all of that were hyperbole, but I’m thankful for it every day it isn’t. A dozen years ago I had the chance to move just about anywhere in the United States, but when San Francisco came knocking, the decision became a ha-ha laugher.

I figured if a region had a guy this funny, this sharp and this effortlessly cool talking baseball every single night, that was the place to live. Maybe a bit could vicariously rub off on me. Heaven knows I need all the help I can get in that department.

I know you can all relate, in your own way: Giants baseball and Krukow have been indistinguishable from each other for generations.

You can trade away franchise icons, you can change managers and executives every few years, you can even win three titles, but Kruk and Kuip were the true stars of the show.

And Krukow didn’t just analyze the game; he taught it to you without ever making you feel like you were sitting in a classroom.

He made the intricate, high-level chess match of pitching sound like common sense.

And he did it all with a personality that warmed even the coldest summer nights.

In recent years, an awful muscle-wasting disease — inclusion-body myositis — has robbed Krukow of his physical mobility. It put him in a wheelchair and kept him from traveling with the team.

Yet he never lost the fastball up top.

Every time he put on the headset, his mind was as sharp and quick as a 99-mph heater at the letters.

Heck, even if he had lost a few ticks — who would know? He’s just that good.

I’ve been lucky enough to talk to Kruk plenty over the years, and I walked away from every single conversation smarter about baseball than when it started.

The promise advertised in that dorm room in Missouri: delivered, firsthand. How’d I get so lucky?

And even if he was almost certainly rolling his eyes at my banal questions on the other end of the line, he treated everyone like a big leaguer.

His near-militant optimism obviously never rubbed off on me, but to be privy to his effortless wisdom was awe-inspiring whether at 7:30 in the morning or 7:30 at night.

The Giants have tried their best over these last few years to fill the massive void on nights Kruk can’t make the booth. They’ve brought in talented folks — guys who would elevate any other booth in the game — but it’s an impossible task. You don’t replace a unicorn.

Who else is going to tell us who’s sitting in the SQUAAAAAT?

Who else is going to evaluate a player’s “oil” with a mechanic’s precision, identify who possesses “None” speed, or demand a more “athletic” pat on the backside after a clutch outing?

Nobody. That vocabulary belonged strictly to him, and, ergo, us.

Giants baseball isn’t always easy to watch.

Even when they win championships, it’s often a grueling, nerve-wracking exercise in torture.

But if Kruk was on the call, you were guaranteed a good time. He was the best buddy a baseball fan could have. And he gave this region a 30-plus-year masterclass in finding joy inside the daily nine-inning grind.

Kruk long ago earned the right to step back; he’s been battling IBM for more than a decade. But he kept entertaining us anyway. Now that his time on the broadcast is coming to an end, his impact will become the story of the final two months of the Giants’ campaign.

But the only tragedy in this moment is that the Baseball Hall of Fame didn’t recognize Kruk and Kuip for their excellence with the Ford C. Frick Award while they were still on the air.

Not that we need some committee to tell us what’s painfully obvious — he’s the best to ever do it. They’re the best to ever do it.

And selfishly for everyone who treats baseball as a friend — the ultimate companion sport for 180 days — it’s going to stink not hearing Kruk talk us through the action with his unmatched brilliance and humor; to not have the exceptional, aspirational chemistry of him and Kuip on the call.

Alas, all great things must end.

Attababe, Kruk.

You put on a masterclass, sir. And the game won’t be the same without you.