Behind the scenes, Jonathan Toews is still doing Toews things — putting others before himself to fulfill his duties as Blackhawks captain.

Yet another example came to light Thursday. Toews has allowed Reese Johnson, plus his girlfriend and dog, to move into his home to finish out this season.

“[We’re] kind of a lot,” Johnson said with a laugh. “[It’s] probably a little bit too much hair around the house for him. But it has been awesome, really special.”

Outwardly, though, Toews hasn’t looked or sounded like his old self in a while.

Renowned for his intensity and competitive drive, Toews is frustrated with the Hawks’– and his own — poor performances, and he hasn’t hidden those feelings in his public comments.

“Across the board, these last few outings have been pretty embarrassing,” Toews said Thursday before the Hawks faced the Sharks. “The effort wasn’t there. There’s no connection in our team game. There’s no valuing what we have and what we get to play for our fans.”

Interim coach Derek King tried to downplay it as simply a “grumpy” day for Toews, but he also understands where he’s coming from.

“I do understand . . . it’s not easy for him [and Patrick Kane], where they’re at in their careers,” King said. “It’s not fun, especially when guys . . . are used to winning, used to winning [Stanley] Cups. They’re used to having strong teams and everybody pushes everybody. Now it’s a little different because they’re the voices. There’s nobody else around them helping with the voice. So I can see the frustration setting in at times.”

Toews also grumbled about the Hawks’ coaching staff repeatedly reminding players not to mentally check out.

“We’ve had meeting upon meeting on this subject,” he said. “We get to play for the Blackhawks in front of 20,000 people in Chicago. Why would you check out ever? I don’t think that should be an issue.”

King didn’t agree with that Toews complaint quite as much.

“They are leaders, [and] they should understand why we’re having meeting after meeting: It’s because we’re a young team,” King said. “A lot of players need to know what’s going on. They need it pointed out to them. I’m sure when they were winning Cups, you didn’t have to have any meetings because, ‘There’s the puck; go get it,’ and they just played. We don’t have that luxury.”

Thursday wasn’t even Toews’ most disheartening media appearance this spring. He made bigger waves in March by openly contemplating his future, admitting thoughts had crept in about “what it’d be like to play for another team.”

As far as anyone knows, Toews — who has one more season left on his contract with a $10.5 million salary-cap hit — hasn’t made a decision yet on whether he might request a trade this summer.

He did add that he’d “like to sit down more often” with general manager Kyle Davidson to “know exactly what’s going on in some detail,” so it’s clearly something he’s thinking through.

But at this point, it’s fair to wonder from the outside if it would even be fair to Toews to remain on the Hawks next season. Or healthy for him.

This losing isn’t going to change. In fact, it might get worse. The organizational apathy about the losing isn’t going to change, either. In fact, losing may well be part of Davidson’s plan; it would benefit the Hawks’ rebuild, as far as maximizing their draft picks.

Could Toews really stomach that? Could he go through another full year of it without it eating away at what makes him a great player? Only he can decide — and he has certainly earned that right — but it seems hard to believe.

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Pat Foley claimed during his pregame speech Thursday that there had been more talk about him recently than he deserved.

But the adoring crowd that packed the United Center for a terrible Blackhawks-Sharks matchup –although most surely weren’t there for the matchup –told a different story. They made that clear when interrupting his speech to chant his name.

So did the commemorative shirts distributed to said fans when they entered the arena. So did the larger-than-human-size letters positioned behind Foley’s lectern. So did the endless montages of legendary Foley calls accompanying historic Hawks highlights that echoed through the building during every commercial break. And so did a postgame “toast” that truly sent Foley off into retirement.

Indeed, after 39 years, the retiring Hawks broadcaster couldn’t quite get away with that outrageous claim.

“I’ve worked for a lot of radio and TV stations in this town, but really, you’re the people I’ve been working for here,” Foley told the fans. “It has been my pleasure and my honor to try and serve the greatest fans in the world.”

For 39 years, Foley’s broadcasting greatness has been predominantly experienced everywhere in Chicagoland (and beyond) except for this block of Madison Street. Such is the functional purpose of a play-by-play man.

That broadcasting greatness has always originated and emanated, however, from this block –first from the Chicago Stadium, then from the United Center. And as Foley rides off into the sunset, with fresh-faced Chris Vosters stepping into his shoes as the new “Voice of the Blackhawks,” his legacy won’t soon be forgotten by Hawks fans in any block of the city.

“I always say I’m the luckiest guy in the room, and tonight is noexception,” Foley said. “It has been a great ride. This career has exceeded my wildest hopes. Those dreams as a 10-year-old have been eclipsed tenfold.

“One thing I want to say to you tonight, and I cannot pretend to say it any better than the great Warren Zevon did: ‘If I leave you, it doesn’t mean I love you any less.’ Keep me in your heart for a while, please.”

Kane flies

Quite a few of Foley’s iconic calls during the second half of his tenure involved Patrick Kane, and Kane fittingly turned up his game for Foley’s final night in the booth.

Reunited with Alex DeBrincat and Dylan Strome as interim coach Derek King put back together the only line that has consistently produced offensively this season, Kane finished with three points in the Hawks’ 5-4 shootout win against the Sharks.

Kane buried a three-on-one rush with DeBrincat and Strome less than two minutes into the game, then fed Calvin de Haan — who returned to the lineup after missing one game nursing lower-body soreness –for a go-ahead goal late in the second period.

The Hawks blew a 4-2 lead in the third period — their third squandered lead of the night — but DeBrincat potted a third-round overtime winner to officially snap the eight-game losing streak.

Letters of Johnson

Reese Johnson, who signed a two-year contract extension Wednesday to theoretically keep him in Chicago through 2024, received some massive praise from King.

“The work ethic’s there; the character’s there; the leadership quality’s there,” King said. “If he’s around here [for] the next two-plus years, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s wearing a letter on his jersey. That’s the kind of leader he is.”

King has obviously loved Johnson since their days together in Rockford, but that’s still an eye-opening comment about a player with six career NHL points (in 34 games).

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DENVER – Coors Field is known for home runs. But the Cubs didn’t rely on the long ball to beat the Rockies 5-2 on Thursday.

They matched their season high with 10 hits.

The trend started in the first inning, as Nick Madrigal, Jonathan Villar and Frank Schwindel hit back-to-back-to-back singles. Seiya Suzuki extended that string of base hits with a double, and the Cubs took a 3-0 lead. With Yan Gomes’ following single, the Cubs recorded five straight hits in the first inning.

Schwindel was the only Cub with a homer on Thursday. The Rockies put together a two-run rally in the fifth inning. But Schwindel, leading off the next frame, added to the Cubs’ lead right away.

Schwindel’s sixth-inning home run was his first home run and first extra-base hit of the season.

Bryant reunion

Not many of Rockies outfielder Kris Bryant’s former Cubs teammates were in the opposite dugout on Thursday. But Cubs manager David Ross had plenty of stories to share from their time playing together.

“One of the cool things and ’15 he was in spring training and had all the hype of all the home runs he hit,” Ross recalled. “And we’re in the training room one day, and I asked him how many home runs he had last year.”

In 2014, Bryant had recorded 43 home runs in Double-A and Triple-A combined. So, Bryant gave Ross that number.

“Not in the show, you didn’t,” Ross said.

Ross retired from playing baseball after the Cubs’ 2016 championship season. He had 106 career home runs. In 2018, Bryant passed that mark

“He made sure that I got a text,” Ross said. “… He let me know he had passed me and I was never catching him again.”

Steele make second start

Cubs lefty Justin Steele’s first start of the season was hard to follow up. He’d thrown five shutout innings against the Brewers over the weekend. But his pristine ERA didn’t last through Thursday.

Steele still hadn’t given up a run when he exited the game with one out in the fifth inning. But he’d put two runners on.

Cubs rookie Ethan Roberts, who also had yet to give up a run this season, replaced Steele. But he ran into problems almost immediately. A couple line drives and a couple walks later, the Rockies had cut the Cubs’ lead to 3-2. Both runs were charged to Steele.

Injury update

The three Cubs on the 10-day injured list continue to make progress, but the team has not given a timeline for their returns. All three became eligible to return from the IL on Thursday.

Right-hander Alec Mills (low back strain) is scheduled to throw a bullpen on Saturday. Lefty Wade Miley (left elbow inflammation) was set to throw long toss at 120 feet on Thursday. Shortstop Andrelton Simmons (right shoulder inflammation) is still on a throwing program.

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DENVER – Cubs manager David Ross muttered under his breath when he heard that Kris Bryant had quickly brought up Ross’ appearances on “Dancing with the Stars” and “Saturday Night Live” when asked about their time together.

“I’m going to kill him,” Ross said with a smile.

Bryant faced his former team for the second time in his career on Thursday, and the second time in seven months, each time in a different uniform. Bryant started in left field and batted third for the Rockies in the series opener.

This time, his trade wasn’t as fresh, and the question of whether he could return to the Cubs in free agency had been answered. On Thursday, Bryant stood by what he’d said in September, when he’d visited Wrigley Field with the Giants, that the trade hadn’t closed the door on a return to Chicago.

“We had some very preliminary talks, more like shorter term stuff,” Bryant said. “But I don’t know if that chapter will ever close until I’m done playing baseball because I rely on a lot of what I went through there to make me who I am now and help me in the future with the guys here.

“So, I’m not ever going to close that chapter. Because I had a lot of fun there. And I’m gonna have a lot of fun here. But I want to do what I did there for another team, and I’m looking forward to making those memories too.”

Bryants’ Cubs memories include plenty of highlights: Rookie of the Year, Most Valuable player, a curse-breaking World Series title, and plenty of friendships like the one he forged with Ross. But this offseason, it became abundantly clear that one of his lasting contributions to Major League Baseball came out of a contentious chapter with the Cubs.

Bryant’s free agency may have halted during the lockout, but Bryant’s name came up plenty as the service time manipulation became a key issue in labor negotiations between MLB and the players association.

Bryant’s case has become the go-to example for service time manipulation. The Cubs infamously sent Bryant to Triple-A to start the 2015 season, just long enough to cost him a year of service time. He and his representation filed a grievance.

“Going through that process, obviously, it wasn’t fun,” Bryant recalled Thursday. “A lot of media attention on it. And I wasn’t necessarily comfortable with it the whole time. But I knew that I had the best case for changing the way this system is run. And I felt that I needed to take it upon myself to do that for everybody, and maybe benefit myself in the process, but knowing that it would be hard to win the case.”

In the end, an arbitrator sided with the Cubs. But the story didn’t end there.

The new Collective Bargaining Agreement includes provisions aimed at addressing service time manipulation. The agreement introduced Prospect Promotion Incentive draft selections for teams that place top prospects on their Opening Day rosters and other specific promotion situations. Eligible prospects who finish in the Top-2 in Rookie of the Year voting will also automatically receive a full year service time.

It remains to be seen what long-term effects those rules will have, but they already seem to be making an impact. Opening Day rosters this year included a star-studded rookie class, including Royals shortstop Bobby Witt Jr., Mariners outfielder Julio Rodriguez and Tigers first baseman Spencer Torkelson.

“I’m happy that we got some changes on that,” Bryant said, “because it felt like everything that I did go through, with all the attention and the negativity surrounding it, was worth it. And that makes me happy.”

Under the new rules, Bryant would have received a full year of major-league service time when he won Rookie of the Year in 2015.

“I’m just a little disappointed they didn’t name a rule after me,” Bryant joked Thursday. “I mean, [Shohei] Ohtani got his rule. I didn’t get a rule.”

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Chicago Bears general manager Ryan Poles didn’t go out and acquire a big talent in free agency or via trade to help quarterback Justin Fields during free agency. With that, many were disappointed as the main goal is to build around the former Ohio State quarterback.

And now the national media is using that as a narrative that the team doesn’t believe in Fields just yet.

Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk is skeptical the Bears management has faith in Fields, saying on the Dan Bernstein Show the Bears might be taking a “step back.”

“There’s a fine line between deliberately and strategically taking a step back and tanking,” Florio said during the appearance. “But it feels like the Bears are deliberately taking a step back. And the problem is, usually teams do that when they don’t have a quarterback they believe in, because part of the setup is, ‘We will be so bad, we end up with a quarterback who becomes our franchise foundation.’ Maybe that’s the hidden message here, that the new regime doesn’t believe in Justin Fields. Because if they did, would they be tearing everything else down? Or would they be trying to build everything else up? Because what happens is if the team stinks, Justin Fields is going to have a rough year, and fans will be like, ‘Well, we wasted a couple first-round picks on him, on to the next one.’ So, maybe if there’s truth to the idea — and it sure looks like it — that they’re deliberately tearing everything down, it could be that this is just step one toward moving on from Justin Fields at the appropriate time, which could be as soon as next year, if they would trade him to someone else and then begin their search for whoever the next franchise quarterback is going to be.”

That seems to be a stretch to make the comment in mid-April, as the NFL draft is still two weeks away and the Bears could very well add receivers early on.

Poles has added to the offensive line and wide receiver positions but they haven’t been moves for elite players. Poles seems to be freeing up cap space that will allow the Bears to go after better free agents in 2023 when they can be more competitive.

It could be detrimental to the team’s long-term success to overpay for a player this season when there are still a lot of gaps on the roster. Matt Eberflus and Fields will likely be in rebuild mode this season.

It’s unlikely the Bears hired Poles and Eberflus on the condition they don’t help aid in the development of a player that they spent two first-round picks on. More unfair, that they would judge a rookie based on the failure of the offense most deem to be Matt Nagy’s fault. The Bears still might regret losing Mitchell Trubisky.

In two weeks we should have a better idea of where the team’s future is headed, hopefully, with Fields under center for seasons to come.

Make sure to check out our Bears forum for the latest on the team.

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Amid gusting, swirling winds at Guaranteed Rate Field, White Sox third baseman Jake Burger caught a pop-up to end the sixth inning and raised both arms in mock celebration.

Except it wasn’t a mock celebration. On this day, that was making a play.

“Tough conditions and that was honestly pure joy,” Burger said. “It wasn’t just me sarcastically celebrating. I was actually excited I caught it.”

It was that kind of day Thursday when fickle windy conditions that were unusual even by upper Midwest standards — officially 29 mph from the southwest — wreaked havoc for both teams. And the Mariners got the better of it in a 5-1 victory before 13,391 fans that snapped the White Sox’ four-game winning streak.

On a day when the Sox managed just four hits — only two that left the infield — the infield pop-up literally was the Sox’ most dangerous weapon. In one bizarre sequence in the bottom of the fifth, the Mariners failed to catch three pop-ups as the Sox scored their only run to cut the Mariners’ lead to 2-1.

Mariners starter Logan Gilbert (1-0), who pitched well and still deserved better, appeared out of a 1-2-3 inning on just 10 pitches when third baseman Eugenio Suarez camped under an Adam Engel pop-up between third and short — only to have the ball land in foul territory.

With new life, Engel popped up again in front of the plate — and catcher Cal Raleigh, struggling to find it, dropped it for an error.

Burger followed with yet another pop up — and by now the crowd was cheering in anticipation of another mishap. And sure enough, they got it. Mariners shortstop J.P. Crawford got twisted and turned around trying to corral it, made a desperate attempt for a basket catch — and dropped it, with Engel scoring.

“What the flags were doing was completely different from what the stadium felt like” first baseman Gavin Sheets said. “It was just a really weird day.”

The comedy of errors was so ridiculous by that point that Crawford’s misplay was ruled a hit and an RBI for Burger.

“It was really tough,” Burger said. “You can’t blame anybody out there for any of those dropped balls. You saw it probably change five different directions when it was in the air, and that’s never a good thing.”

Though Gilbert had been in a groove, the pop-up folly presented the Sox with an opportunity to steal the game. Tim Anderson’s single put runners on first and second with Luis Robert up and Gilbert perhaps a little bit on tilt. But Gilbert ratcheted it back up and struck out Robert swinging to end the inning.

And that was it for the Sox. After the wind made the Mariners look like the Keystone Cops, they used the wind in their favor to take control.

After Sox manager Tony La Russa pulled reliever Matt Foster following a strikeout of No. 8 hitter Julio Rodriguez, Raleigh greeted Bennett Sousa with a wind-aided home run into the left field seats to give the Mariners a 3-1 lead.

In the eighth inning, La Russa pulled Sousa after a walk to Jesse Winker and Mitch Haniger greeted reliever Jose Ruiz with a two-run homer, also to left field, to give the Mariners a 5-1 lead.

But even with the loss, the Sox (4-2) won two of three against a good team. La Russa wasn’t about to complain about the weather.

“We get a lot of weather changes in the major leagues and you have to play in them,” La Russa said. The wind … was kind of interesting, kind of fun for the fans. There were a lot of funding things going on out there. It’s one of those deals [where] if you expect to play in conditions that are perfect … you better find something else to do.”

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White Sox fans, make sure you have access to streaming service Apple TV+ because that will be the only place to watch the game Friday night against the Rays.

Deep breaths. You can do this.

If you have an internet connection, you can watch the game for free without subscribing. Go to the Apple TV app, which can be found on iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV 4K and HD and tv.apple.com. It’s also on smart TVs, gaming consoles and cable set-top boxes. If you’re a Comcast customer, for example, Apple TV+ is available under the Apps tab. You might be asked to sign in using an Apple ID.

After opening Apple TV+, you’ll find “Friday Night Baseball” at the top of the page. Click or tap on the image. You might need to swipe left on some devices. From there, you can start streaming, but functions such as pause and fast-forward aren’t available with the broadcast.

Orioles announcer Melanie Newman, analysts Chris Young and Hannah Keyser and reporter Brooke Fletcher will call the game. The broadcasts include a pregame and postgame show, as well as a rules analyst. Former umpire Brian Gorman – who famously drew Hawk Harrelson’s wrath for ejecting former Sox pitcher Mark Buehrle in 2005 – is the first to fill such a role on an MLB broadcast.

Apple TV+’s exclusive “Friday Night Baseball” doubleheaders debuted last week to mixed reviews. Produced by MLB Network, the broadcasts looked great with a sharp picture and graphics that are on-brand. The announcing crews left a lot to be desired, though.

The Sox return to Apple TV+ on May 6 against the Red Sox. The Cubs will appear on the streamer May 13 against the Diamondbacks and June 24 against the Cardinals.

Remote patrol

Some radio broadcasts of the Bulls’ first-round playoff series will shift from The Score to WBBM-AM (780) because of conflicts with Cubs games. For Games 1 and 2, the broadcasts will begin on WBBM, then move to The Score after a condensed Cubs postgame show. The Score will carry Game 3 and WBBM will carry Game 4 in their entirety.

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