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Thanks to Harry Caray, the Chicago White Sox added pioneering female announcer Mary Shane in 1977 — and why it didn’t last

Much will be made this baseball season of how veteran ESPN announcer Beth Mowins is breaking new ground as one of Marquee Sports Network’s three backup Chicago Cubs play-by-play voices.

Plenty of fans probably have no idea she was a part-time member of the TV and radio broadcast team covering the beloved 1977 Sox team remembered as the South Side Hit Men.

“It’s a very loose (broadcast) team, a very loose arrangement,” Shane told the Tribune at the time. “We don’t even have regular positions.”

A typical game for her involved an inning of play-by-play on radio, then one on TV, and analysis laced throughout the rest of the game on both.