[4] Both of Kurkjian's older brothers played college baseball for the Catholic University Cardinals and were inducted into that school's athletics hall of fame.

[4] At the suggestion of his basketball coach,[7] Kurkjian began writing for the student newspaper, The Pitch, and the school's yearbook, "The Wind-up.

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.

One element of this that has proved popular with listeners is when Van Pelt reads out names of American sports stars in a comedic Baltimore accent, often making Kurkjian crease with laughter.

[13] Since Van Pelt's departure from his radio slot to anchor the late night SportsCenter show, the mantle of making Kurkjian laugh has been taken up by The 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 the American League Wild Card Series postseason game between the Houston Astros[14] and Minnesota Twins[15] alongside play-by-play announcer Karl Ravech and analyst Eduardo Pérez.

[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.

[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 on WXTU radio in Philadelphia.

[17] On every day of the Major League Baseball season, from 1990 through 2009, Kurkjian cut every MLB box score out of a newspaper and taped them into a spiral notebook.