Bob Costas is coming back to a baseball booth, just not the one you might expect.
Chicago Sports Network announced Thursday that Costas will join longtime White Sox analyst Steve Stone in the broadcast booth for the White Sox-Braves game on June 9, the first of two 1980s-themed throwback broadcasts the network has planned for the summer. The second, on June 27 against the Kansas City Royals, will celebrate the legendary 1983 “Winning Ugly” White Sox team, with Harold Baines, Carlton Fisk, Greg Luzinski, and Ron Kittle all scheduled to contribute stories and appearances throughout the broadcast. Both telecasts will feature retro-inspired graphics and production elements designed to replicate the look and feel of 1980s baseball.
Costas retired from play-by-play after the 2024 ALDS, citing a belief that his performance did not meet his own standards following criticism during the Yankees-Royals series, and returned to NBC this spring in a carefully structured emeritus role, hosting about two-thirds of the pregame shows for Sunday Night Baseball.
“I’m glad the White Sox present fortunes are looking up and happy to join Steve Stone and the CHSN broadcast to look back on the Sox’s memorable 1983 season,” Costas said in a statement.
Costas will also join Chuck Garfien on The White Sox Podcast in the week leading up to the June 9 game.
CHSN launched in October 2024 as the successor to NBC Sports Chicago, carrying Bulls, Blackhawks, and White Sox games. The network spent its first year navigating a prolonged and contentious carriage dispute with Comcast, Chicago’s largest pay-TV provider, before finally reaching a distribution agreement in June 2025 that put the network on Comcast’s Xfinity Ultimate TV package. The White Sox, of course, finished with the worst record in baseball in 2024, which did not exactly help the network’s launch.
About Sam Neumann
Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.