It has been remarkably quiet around the Cubs, a distraction-free zone where the focus is on baseball.
That will change in one week, when Ozzie Guillen returns from a five-game suspension to manage the Miami Marlins at their new ballpark in Little Havana.
The Cubs will be in the other dugout on April 17, beginning a three-game series that already had plenty of Chicago storylines between Guillen, Carlos Zambrano and Mark Buehrle. Its now a political flashpoint.
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Guillen apologized on Tuesday for comments in TIME magazine that were sympathetic to Fidel Castro and offensive to the citys Cuban community.
At a Miami press conference that was carried live on national televisionand drew protestors outside the stadiumGuillen said his words were essentially lost in translation.
The magazine quotes Guillen as saying he respects the Cuban dictator because a lot of people have wanted to kill Fidel Castro for the last 60 years, but that (expletive) is still here.
Chicago reporters are used to Guillens entertaining stream of consciousness, how the former White Sox manager would wander into areas outside of baseball and have everyone laughing.
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Today, managers are the faces of the narrative, meeting with the media before and after almost every game. Guillen and first-year Cubs manager Dale Sveum are from the same generation as players. The White Sox even acquired Sveum when Guillen was injured in 1992. Their personalities are polar opposites.
You just hope youre never in that seat, Sveum said. Hes in a difficult situation right now. Its unfortunate for him and the city of Miami. Its just one of those incidents you wish you could have back. But its not going to go away.