We're so sad to learn about the passing of Ed Farmer. He was a kidney recipient and outspoken advocate for organ donation. He will be greatly missed.
Article re-posted from the Chicago Tribune.
Ed Farmer — a son of Chicago’s South Side who spent 2½ seasons pitching for the White Sox during an 11-year major-league career and, for almost 30 years, was a radio announcer for the team — died Wednesday night. He was 70.
Farmer, who was an advocate for organ donations, had dealt with kidney disease most of his life. The team said he died in a Los Angeles-area hospital of complications from a previous illness, but shared no more details.
A member of the 1980 American League All-Star team while with the Sox, Farmer had been a full-time radio announcer for the White Sox since 1992, first as an analyst and, beginning in 2006, as a play-by-play man.
“My heart is broken, but my mind is at peace knowing my dear friend is no longer suffering,” Darrin Jackson, Farmer’s broadcast partner for the last 11 seasons, said in a statement, calling Farmer “a competitor who also was everyone’s best friend.”
White Sox Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf, in his own statement, noted how Farmer’s broadcast work played off his experience as a ballplayer, sense of humor, love of baseball and passion for the White Sox.
“Ed grew up a Sox fan on the South Side of Chicago and his allegiance showed every single night on the radio as he welcomed his ‘friends’ to the broadcast,” Reinsdorf said. “I am truly devastated by the loss of my friend.”
White Sox TV play-by-play announcer Jason Benetti, who called Farmer “a loyal, welcoming friend," tweeted that “scores of people have lost a piece of their heart, including me.”
Former White Sox pregame and postgame radio host Chris Rongey said, via Twitter, he had “never known anyone like him. Truly I haven’t. And there isn’t a chance on Earth I ever will again. Ed Farmer was generous. He cared about people. He was funny, often times on purpose.”
ESPN baseball reporter Buster Olney