SOX-CUBS TOPS AGENDA
The NBA playoffs are here, even though the Bulls aren’t part of the fun. The Stanley Cup playoffs are rolling on, though, sadly, the Blackhawks haven’t done much rolling with them.
The Sky are in full swing, the Fire are about to get going again and how about those Bears? No, really, has anybody seen them? Their training camp — with the first padded practice Monday — has been all but invisible.
But the story of the week is what’s happening at Wrigley Field toward the end of it, and that’s the Cubs and White Sox meeting — let’s hope — for the first three games of the six scheduled between the teams in this (again, let’s hope) 60-game majorleague season.
‘‘It’s exciting, right?’’ Cubs manager David Ross said last month as he perused the schedule and looked ahead to the renewal of the crosstown rivalry.
Exciting, for sure, though perhaps not as much as it would’ve been had the Sox held up their end of the bargain through the first third of the campaign. Instead, dealing with injuries and inconsistency across the board, they still are trying to get their bearings. Even the Cubs, off to a terrific start, entered the week having failed to win a series — this one against the Brewers — for the first time.
But there’s no time for lamentation in this ‘‘sprint’’ everyone in baseball keeps talking about. Besides, what is a CubsSox series in the midst of a spiritbattering 2020 if not a gift? We’ll take it, won’t we? We’d be crazy not to.
Here’s what’s happening: