I became a baseball fan at the back end of the bar of the Deadwood, in Iowa City, Iowa. It was 1985, the Cubs had just missed getting into the World Series the year before, and a quasi-boyfriend from Chicago initiated me, teaching me the basics of stats and keeping score. With a bunch of us huddled up, drinking Old Style, making jokes, and occasionally cheering, it was kinda like being a bleacher bum—we just had our necks craned up at a TV.
Thankfully for Chicago baseball, Stone eventually crossed the street again—even if it was at the cost of being christened “Stone Pony” by one of the homiest and hokiest of all announcers. Since 2008, he’s been providing counterballast to White Sox TV play-by-play man Hawk Harrelson. You know, the guy who says “He gone.”
