Steve Stone had called one other ballgame with Bob Costas, in 1987, when the Cubs visited the Phillies and Costas filled in for Harry Caray, who was recovering from a stroke.
Stone was in the midst of 20 years as the Cubs’ TV analyst, and Costas was calling NBC’s “Game of the Week” en route to a spot in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Stone said he found Costas “supremely talented and a really nice guy.”
“Nothing’s really changed,” Stone told the Sun-Times.
Stone was still glowing Wednesday after calling the White Sox’ game Tuesday with Costas on Chicago Sports Network’s 1980s-themed throwback broadcast, replete with graphics and images from the era.
But a funny thing happened on the field: A riveting game broke out.
“I was trying to get Bob to realize that, even with the ’80s retrospective going on, our fans wanted to hear a bit on what turned out to be one of the most dramatic games of the season,” Stone said.
In his major-league debut, Braden Montgomery hit a two-run homer in the 10th inning to give the Sox a come-from-behind, 6-5 victory over the major-league-leading Braves at Rate Field.
Costas’ call: “Sends it in the air to left, it is back near the wall, it is over the wall for a game-winning home run! How about that? Talk about drama! Talk about theater!”
“TALK ABOUT DRAMA. TALK ABOUT THEATRE.” 🍿
Bob Costas, in the booth with Steve Stone for our 80’s-themed broadcast, got to call one of the most iconic White Sox moments in recent memory 🙌 pic.twitter.com/QaoXkxXhj0
— White Sox on CHSN (@CHSN_WhiteSox) June 10, 2026
“I think Bob’s call at the end was wonderful,” Stone said. “We kind of both jumped out of our seats. It was so special. We did this wonderfully refreshing 1980s retrospective and then got a chance to call one of the most dramatic games of the season for the White Sox.
“The Hollywood ending for Braden Montgomery and the Sox — they came back from 4-0, 5-4 and a two-run homer with two outs in the 10th inning, it doesn’t get any better theater than that. And we were able to intertwine the whole thing together. It was beautiful.”
Costas told the Sun-Times: “It was fun, and there were a lot of good aspects to it. It was, to be honest — and I said it on the air — somewhat disjointed. All of the clips and throwback aspects were appropriately selected; sometimes they worked in the flow of things and sometimes not quite as well.
“The White Sox and other people have told me that the response was extremely positive, and people were very appreciative of the byplay between me and Steve. I knew that would be good because he and I are longtime friends. I hadn’t seen him in awhile, but we hit it off.”
CHSN reporter Connor McKnight was the play-by-play voice for the first two innings. Then he gave way to Costas and Stone, essentially removing a lead voice. Costas had been adamant in the weeks before the game that he would not be doing play-by-play, which he stopped doing two years ago.
“I was there to converse with Steve and to tell stories and do recollections,” Costas said. “In retrospect, I think that Connor should have remained just to do a minimal nuts-and-bolts play-by-play, because I was not even keeping score. I didn’t prepare in the way you would prepare to call a game.”
“I was concerned that if the game turned out to be a great game, that we would have to pivot, which we did at the end. And I had no choice but to call the home run. Somebody had to.
“I enjoyed myself very much, but anyone who knows me knows that I am always aware of how it could’ve been better. That’s just my nature.”
Costas didn’t ask for a fee to appear. He only asked that either the Sox or the network donate to the Joe Torre Safe at Home Foundation, which both did.