Harry Caray

Related Biography: Broadcaster Steve Stone

Steve Stone was born July 14, 1947. He made his debut as a pitcher for the San Francisco Giants April 8, 1971, where he remained for an additional season. In 1973 he pitched for the Chicago White Sox, staying only one year, but returning for two more seasons in 1977. From 1974 to 1976 Stone played for the Chicago Cubs, where he was fated to return as a broadcaster with Caray in 1983. He completed his career as a pitcher with the Baltimore Orioles. During his tenure with the Orioles he received the Cy Young Award, and pitched three perfect innings in the All-Star Game in 1980. Stone lead the Orioles to a pennant, before retiring from pitching due to arm problems. Stone worked as a sportscaster with WGN until 2000, working with Chip Caray his final two years after Caray's death. He left WGN for two years to work as a competition consultant in 2000, but returned to broadcasting for the Cubs with Chip Caray in the 2003 season.

Stone put up with Caray's antics for 15 seasons while working for WGN as a baseball analyst. In an interview with Paul Lomartire of the Palm Beach Post, Stone said that Caray "was a unique character, charismatic character. People just gravitated towards him." Lomartire surmised that for Stone, "moving to the TV booth alongside Caray was a daily lesson in unpredictability." Stone wrote of Caray's unpredictability and magnetic character in a book titled, Where's Harry? The title of the book, Stone explained, came from people always asking him "where's Harry?" whenever Caray was not around. Stone writes, "Harry was more entertaining than 99.99 percent of the people in the business and the fans worshipped him."