SAN FRANCISCO – Steve Stone has watched 17 White Sox seasons from a commentary booth, but none were like this one.

“I’ve had some good years and some bad years, but this is one of the best,” Stone said. “It’s a tough year. It’s not a great place to be right now.”

Were it not for the never-ending love of baseball of Stone, now 77, who sounds the same and is as astute an analyst as he was at 47, 57 and 67, a year like this could send a man into retirement.

But not Stone, who doesn’t want it to end that way.

He plans to continue analyzing Sox games after next season.

“I never set a time frame for myself,” he said, “because no one can predict what life has in store for us. I’ve been lucky to be healthy. And one of the things you judge is whether I really enjoy what I’m doing. The answer is yes. I really love what I do.”

When Stone was drafted by the Giants, who hosted the Sox late Monday night in the first of three games at Oracle Park, he wanted to pitch as long as he enjoyed it and then leave on his terms, not the game’s. And he wants to continue to be an announcer as long as he can lay things out at the same level that has earned him the sympathy and respect of Cubs and Sox audiences for 37 years.

“I feel like I can still do it at a high level,” he said. “I want to do this for a while. I want this team to be a little bit better. Underperformance in the high performance industry is hard to take, but we have wonderful people we deal with. From the moment I got here, it felt like a family. You can’t manufacture something like that.”

Stone appreciates the chance chairman Jerry Reinsdorf gave him to stay in Chicago after he left the Cubs. He respects and admires Reinsdorf’s loyalty and generosity behind the scenes and occasionally enjoys his company. And he defends him passionately.

With the Sox product at an all-time low, supporting the majority owner is not a popular gesture.

“This is a guy who doesn’t ask anyone to defend him, but when someone does something for you, you can’t repay it in a day or a month,” Stone said. “He may be overly loyal, but loyalty is something I never lose sight of, which is why I’ll be loyal to Jerry as long as I’m around. He helped me get back to Chicago.

“The fans are so unhappy that they want to take their anger out on one person. And the easiest way is to take it out on the man who owns the team.”

Stone is fit and in excellent health. He walks a lot, has avoided alcohol for 25 years and, at 167 pounds, weighs less than he did in high school. He takes more breaks from games now but seems ageless, although he admits that at 77, “everything gets a little harder.”

“Sometimes you have to be lucky,” Stone said. “To have good health, even if it’s not perfect, is a great blessing.”

In a recent radio interview, he described his feelings about the season as “depressed” – the Sox were 30-95 through Sunday – but there’s no reason to worry about his mental health, even in a year like this.

“Saying that might have been unfair to people who suffer from depression,” he said. “It’s not necessarily about being depressed, it’s about wanting the team you care about to do better. There’s nothing you can do about that in the announcer’s booth.”

He can only do his best by sitting in the booth where he has watched the Cubs and Sox games, having played for both teams.

“I’m proud that I’ve become part of the Chicago scene, especially in sports,” Stone said. “It’s something I don’t take lightly, and as long as I do this job well, I’m going to keep doing it. When the day comes that I can’t live up to my standards, which are probably higher than most people, I’m going to stop. I don’t think that day has come yet.”