Ron Santo, Steve Stone, & Why it Rocks to Live in Chicago
Living in a major city/market is something that a lot of people, I for one at least, take for granted. The first time I noticed this is when I worked at Camp Ma-Ka-Ja-Wan Boy Scout Camp in Pearson, WI. If you brought a TV with you and an antenna you could usually get about 4 channels on the TV from where I worked. One summer I made it a goal to watch the 10 PM news every night. Well, I watched it most nights and I found that the news anchors on the Rhinelander news were no where near as polished as the news anchors as I saw in Chicago. This isn’t an attempt to mock the Rhinelander news anchors, but they were in the minor leagues of news compared to Chicago and they were learning how to pull it off. But, what it made me realize for the first time, was how fortunate I have been to grown up in a major market where you get to see the best news anchors.
I also noticed this when we were on our honeymoon in Orlando. This was a second tier market (if that) and we we were caught in the middle of a hurricane while we were staying at Disney World. While watching the news and tracking the storm, I developed a deep appreciation for people like Tom Skilling who are the best in the business who gravitate towards a major market because that is where the money is.
So, we come to the point of this entry. We in Chicago are fortunate to have some of the best baseball announcers in the country. First, for my beloved Cubs, we have Pat Hughes and Ron Santo. Pat Hughes is clearly a class act and one of the best announcers in the game. He has won the Illinois Sportscaster Award four times and the Wisconsin sportscaster award three times while he was working with Bob Uecker. He spends time before every game reading and researching everything there is to know about baseball. He is smooth, calm, collected, and funny. He has a classic style where he describes the uniforms of the players each game and gives detailed explanations of each hit. One time I heard someone talk about how he was better then the rest because he never just says, “There is a base hit to left,” he always describes the hit, such as, “There’s a hard line drive to left.” If you can’t be at the game, his descriptions are the best.
A reviewer at reviewstream.com points out that Pat’s 12 years of being a color analyst for Bob Uecker taught him what it meant to be a good color analyst and that helps him to work so seamlessly with his partner, Ron Santo. Ron Santo is the ultimate Cub’s fan. A lot of people do not like what he brings to the booth. They are put off by his cheers and grunts and his pure passion for the game. For me, that is what I love about Ron. We were at a Cub’s-Brewer’s game in Milwaukee in 2009 and half the lights in the stadium turned off and my wife said, “I don’t feel complete without knowing what Ron thinks about this.” (Or something like that.) Ron has a wealth of baseball knowledge in his head, and Pat allows him to bring it out. Other announcers would talk over Ron and treat him like an old blathering idiot. But Pat does an amazing job playing the straight man to Ron.
Some of the best parts of the broadcasts are when the Cubs are either winning really big or losing really big and they start running off on tangents. For example, they might get into a conversation about the Munsters or about Ron’s hair piece. My favorite joke was one night if was cold out and Ronnie said he was cold and Par asked him if he wanted a blanker for his legs. (This isn’t really funny unless you remember that Ron has two prostetic legs because he is a diabetic. Pat wasn’t being mean, it is just part of the routine, and I almost dies laughing.) I’m not saying that a more traditional show with Pat and a normal color analyst wouldn’t be good as well, but what Pat and Ron bring is special and when it is over, I will miss it. Even this season, Ron has been missing a lot of road trips and while Dave Otto and Keith Moreland bring a lot of knowledge to the booth, I miss Ron.
If you go to other cities, you just don’t get that kind of quality. Even turning to the White Sox broadcasts you get much more boring and monotonous talk.
However, on the TV side, the White Sox you have one of the best baseball analysts around, Steve Stone. Steve was a Cub’s announcer for twenty years alongside Hary Caray and then Chip Caray before he resigned from the Cub’s after the 2004 season. There are a lot of people who thought Stone was forced out after criticizing the team, but the Cub’s strongly deny that. After a hiatus from Chicago, Stone came back and was an analyst for 670 The Score sports radio and now is working for the White Sox. Steve Stone was also a TV analyst for ESPN and was nominated for the 2008 Ford C Frick Award. Steve Stone is a wealth of baseball knowledge and many times will predict what strategy is going to be put in place before it happens. He explains the game better than anyone I have heard, and in a way that a normal person can understand. Again, if you travel to other smaller markets, the quality drops off significantly. Even in the prior years with Singleton for the Sox you saw a less quality product.
So, there you have it. I am grateful that I live in a major market where I get the best of the best when it comes to sports broadcasting, news anchors, newspapers, etc… We don’t always realize how good we have it but there are times when I notice it, and realize how good we have it here in Chicago.
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Tags: 670 The Score, bob uecker, Chicago, Cubs, Harry Caray, pat hughes, Rhinelander, Ron Santo, Steve Stone, Television, Tom Skilling
