White Sox broadcaster Steve Stone 'will be back'

Steve Stone will return to the broadcast booth for the Chicago White Sox in 2013. It had been rumored that color analyst Stone might leave the Sox and partner Hawk Harrelson, a position Stone has held since 2008. Stone ended those rumors in an interview on WSCR 670 AM Tuesday morning with the Mully and Hanley Show:

Regardless of what you might have read or heard or people speculated on or blogged (about) or anything else, I will be back. It’s 100 percent. Hopefully, as I said, for many years. In looking at it, this is, in my estimation, the best big city in the country."

Stone was supposedly a target of the Arizona Diamondbacks, a team that parted ways with play-by-play announcer Darren Sutton and color analyst Mark Grace after the end of the 2012 season. Stone says that he plans to stay with the White Sox through the end of his current contract, which ends after the 2013 season, and "hopefully beyond."

Harrelson and Stone were on the list of 41 finalists for the Ford Frick Award - the National Baseball Hall of Fame's broadcaster award - but neither made the cut for the final list of 10 nominees.