CHICAGO – Dale Sveum was patient and ready as he waited for that first full-time, big-league manager’s job. There had been a short interim stint running the Milwaukee Brewers after years spent as a player and a coach.

Robin Ventura? He was about to dabble in baseball again as an adviser, but managing for the first time wasn’t on his radar at all.

Now, here they are on opposite sides of a city that takes its baseball seriously, making daily decisions that are critiqued and dissected by thousands, if not millions of fans while dealing with young players, multimillion-dollar stars and the grind of a season where fortunes change rapidly.