Mike Krukow boarded a plane for Chicago on Thursday morning, hoping for the best. Wrigley Field has become his personal nightmare, but the Giants-Cubs playoff series has come calling. It’s a call he will answer.

I had only a brief text exchange with Krukow around 8:30 a.m., asking if he’d make the trip. “Gonna try,” he responded before boarding his flight and turning off his phone. Giants fans should feel confident that, barring a catastrophe, Krukow will join Duane Kuiper in the radio booth for Friday night’s Game 1, sounding just as enthusiastic as ever.

Krukow is dealing with a condition known as inclusion-body myositis, a somewhat mysterious disease that causes atrophy in specific muscle groups. He is most affected in his legs, and although he’s constantly wary of falling down — just a slight bump with another person could do the trick — he negotiates flat ground with confidence and a cane.

Stairs are an entirely different story, particularly heading down. Because there is so little foundation in his legs, he needs to grip a railing and summon all of his arm strength to ease his way through it.

Virtually all major-league ballparks have elevators and ramps to aid the disabled, but Wrigley is a glaring exception. Krukow needs to negotiate a short flight of stairs to get in and out of the broadcast booth in Chicago, and after two or three days of agonizing adventures, it becomes extremely frustrating.

These first two games of the Division Series should be particularly difficult, because the Giants will be broadcasting only on radio, with all four announcers (including Jon Miller and Dave Flemming) involved. It’s a postseason setup they’ve cherished, but it will require the occasional shuffling of bodies in tight quarters, not to mention those dreaded stairs.

Krukow swore off Wrigley after the Giants’ trip there in August 2014, and he wasn’t about to return this year. Being absent pains him emotionally, as well, for he broke into the majors with the Cubs in 1976 and spent five full seasons there. “It’s a great city, great ballpark, and my wife and I have so many wonderful memories there,” he said recently. “You never forget the club you first broke in with. Stays with you forever.”

Now that the Giants have survived the wild-card playoff game, on a Madison Bumgarner masterpiece and Conor Gillaspie’s three-run homer against the Mets, Krukow knows he can’t stay away. In his playing days, he was known as a “gamer,” an expression he still uses on the air, to describe courage and a forthright nature under all circumstances. It fits the man well. Like the rest of us, he can’t wait for the first pitch.