Column: Will it be a June swoon — or June gloom — for the White Sox and Cubs?

June traditionally has been associated with swooning in baseball.

But since both Chicago baseball teams pre-swooned in April and May, the main task for the Cubs and White Sox over the next 30 days will be avoiding the dreaded June gloom — total apathy from their respective fan bases.

In a city like Chicago that treats every summer day like a party, it’s relatively easy to ignore bad baseball while waiting on the return of the Bears. There are many other entertainment options, along with my preferred summer pastime of doing nothing.

We already can see it happening on the South Side.

The Sox enter the weekend series against the Detroit Tigers ranked 23rd in average attendance at 18,610, a 25% drop-off from last year’s 24,704. Only opening day and a few popular giveaways at Guaranteed Rate Field have prevented an even larger decrease.

It partly can be traced to a lack of season ticket renewals after the 2022 debacle and failure by management to address some offseason needs. Canceling SoxFest didn’t help. Then came the 7-21 start in April, an injury to fan favorite Tim Anderson and a breakdown by a much-heralded rotation where all five starters currently sport earned-run averages above 4.00.

“I don’t think we’ve come close to clicking as a team,” manager Pedro Grifol said Wednesday. “Why that is, I’m not sure.”

If the manager still doesn’t know two months in, someone in the front office might want to clue him in.

Meanwhile, White Sox Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf, a polarizing figure in any given year, made another unforced error last month, suggesting at a seminar in Los Angeles that fans only “want to know that when they get down to the last month of the season you still have a shot.”

A shot?

“You’re still playing meaningful games,” he said. “If you can do that consistently, you’ll make your fans happy.”

That mentality is so far removed from what Sox fans consider “happiness,” it’s almost as if Reinsdorf were trolling them.

Asked Monday how Reinsdorf was handling this season’s losing, general manager Rick Hahn gave his stock answer that the chairman felt like any other fan “emotionally invested” in the Sox.

“There’s a level of frustration, certainly the start being unbearable,” Hahn said. “And as of late, wanting to see more consistency when we perform well in a certain area, (wondering) why we are not clicking in others and wanting to know how we are going to get better at it.”

Hahn wouldn’t say how the Sox are going to be better at it, except for reiterating: “We still believe in this group.”

That also was Hahn’s mantra in ‘22, so maybe it’s time to come up with something new.

The Cubs find themselves in the same boat as the White Sox, winning just often enough to be considered contenders in a truly bad division. The angst isn’t as ear-splitting as it is on the South Side, and attendance has been OK — an average of 32,588 at Wrigley Field, or 283 more per game than last season.

Wrigleyville, where you can walk to a restaurant or bar before or after games, has its advantages over the in-and-out experience of watching baseball in Bridgeport.

Cubs attendance numbers will likely to go up as tourist season arrives and baseball fans check Wrigley Field off their bucket lists. Wrigley always will be a fan destination from June through August. The only question might be whether tickets can be purchased on the cheap again due to the Cubs floundering, as happened often last summer.

Thanks to a heavy dose of early games at Wrigley, the Cubs play only 10 home games in June. They can thank the MLB schedule-makers for that unfortunate occurrence, and now they’ll have to play well on the upcoming 10-game West Coast trip to remain relevant.

A disastrous trip could harpoon the Cubs’ chances of staying afloat in this not-so-great race for the National League Central title, making the rest of the season moot.

Cubs fan don’t expect much this season, so they can’t be too surprised at what they’ve seen in spite of the preseason narrative that the beginning of the run of the “next great Cubs team” finally had arrived.

Chairman Tom Ricketts seemingly was in “What, me worry?” mode Wednesday, happily handing out baseballs to kids and taking selfies with fans at the start of the game against the Tampa Bay Rays. His team was only four games out of first place in spite of a 10-17 record in May entering the final day of the month.

After blowing a late lead twice in a 4-3 loss, Cubs manager David Ross and players stressed the value of winning a series against the best team in baseball.

“I’m really proud of how we finished this homestand, coming off what we did against Cincinnati,” Ross said of the earlier sweep by the rebuilding Reds.

Added first baseman/DH Trey Mancini: “To take a series against (the Rays), it’s a nice step forward for us.” /first baseman/DH/ Trey Mancini added.

No one seemed particularly upset they let a winnable game slip away. Leo Durocher once said “Nice guys finish last,” and that’s where the Cubs stood entering their California trip.

After the West Coast swing, the Cubs return to Wrigley on June 13, opening a series against the Pittsburgh Pirates.

A lot can happen in two weeks.

Will Cubs fans remain tuned in? Or will it be “Out of sight, out of mind”?