Not done yet: 'Tough season' won't be Steve Stone's last

SAN FRANCISCO — Steve Stone has watched 17 White Sox seasons from the broadcast booth, but none like this.

“I’ve done some pretty good years and some bad ones, but this is one of the toppers,” Stone said. “This is a tough one. It’s not a great place to be right now.”

Were it not for a love of baseball that never fades for Stone — now 77 and the same insightful analyst he was at 47, 57 and 67 — a year like this could send a man to retirement. But not Stone, who doesn’t want it to end like this. He plans on analyzing Sox games even beyond next season.

“I never put a time frame on it,” he said, “because nobody can predict what life holds for us. I’ve been fortunate to have good health. And one of the things you evaluate is, do I really enjoy what I’m doing? The answer is yes. I truly love what I’m doing.”

When drafted in 1969 by the Giants — who hosted the Sox late Monday in the first of three games at Oracle Park — Stone wanted to pitch for as long as he loved it and walk away on his terms, not the game’s. He now wants to broadcast as long as he’s breaking things down at the same standard that has earned him endearment and respect from Cubs and Sox audiences for 37 years.

“I feel like I can still do it on a high level,” he said. “I want to do this for a while longer. I would like to see this team get a little bit better. Lack of performance in a performance-driving industry is difficult to deal with, but we have wonderful people to deal with. It felt like a family from the time I got here. That’s not something you can manufacture.”

Stone treasures the opportunity chairman Jerry Reinsdorf gave him to stay in Chicago after he left the Cubs. He respects and admires Reinsdorf’s loyalty and behind-the-scenes generosity and enjoys his company on occasion.

And he defends him passionately. With the Sox’ product at an all-time rock bottom, embracing the majority owner is no popular gesture.

“This is a guy who asks for nobody to defend him, but when somebody does something for you, you can’t repay it in a day or month,” Stone said. “He may be loyal to a fault, but loyalty is something I never lose track of, which is why I will be loyal to Jerry as long as I’m around. He helped me get back to Chicago.

“The fans are so un-happy that they want to take it out on one person, and the easiest way is to take it out on the man who owns the team.”

Stone walks a lot, has avoided alcohol for 25 years and, at 167 pounds, weighs five pounds less than he did in high school. He takes more games off now but seems ageless, although he admits that at his age, “everything gets a little harder.”

“Sometimes you have to be lucky,” he said. “That’s one of the great blessings, to have good health, although not perfect.”

In a recent radio interview, he used the word “depressed” when describing his feelings about the season — the Sox were 30-95 through Sunday — but there’s no reason to worry about his mental health.

“Saying that might not have been fair to people who are dealing with depression,” he said. “It’s not necessarily feeling depressed but wanting the team you care about to do better. In the broadcast booth, you can’t do anything about it.”

All he can do is be at his best in the booth, from where he watched the Cubs and Sox after playing for both teams.

“As a point of pride, I’ve become part of the Chicago landscape, certainly in sports,” Stone said. “That’s something I don’t take lightly, and as long as I do this job well, I’ll continue to do it. When the day comes that I can’t do it to my standards, which are probably higher than most, I will do it no longer. I don’t think that day has come yet.”