Pope Leo XIV is a huge Chicago White Sox fan.
It’s a good thing too — otherwise the event being thrown in his honor at the team’s home stadium this weekend might be a little awkward.
While the White Sox play the Rangers in Texas on Saturday afternoon, the Archdiocese of Chicago will be at Rate Field celebrating the new leader of the Catholic Church — who was born and raised on the city’s South Side — with a Mass by Chicago Archbishop Blase J. Cupich and other festivities.
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While the man once known as Robert Prevost won’t be there in person, he will appear in what event organizers describe as “a video message from Pope Leo XIV to the young people of the world.”
Leo will also be represented in mural form. The White Sox unveiled a graphic installation featuring his likeness on a concourse wall before a May 19 game against the Seattle Mariners, less than two weeks after Leo was selected as the first U.S.-born pope. He replaced Pope Francis, who died on April 21 at age 88.
The Chicago White Sox have commemorated the fandom of Pope Leo XIV with a graphic installation at Rate Field. (Nam Y. Huh / Associated Press)
The graphic was installed next to Section 140, where Leo sat in Row 19, Seat 2 for Game 1 of the 2005 World Series between the White Sox and Houston Astros. As remarkable as it might sound, there is footage from Fox’s national broadcast of that Oct. 22, that shows the man then-known as Father Bob in the stands at the stadium then-known as U.S. Cellular Field.
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Hosting a World Series game for the first time since 1959, the White Sox led by two runs with one out in the top of the ninth inning. Chicago closer Bobby Jenks had just thrown a 95-mph fastball past Houston’s Adam Everett for an 0-1 count and was preparing for his next pitch.
That’s when the camera panned to a nervous-looking Father Bob, who appears to be wearing a team jacket over a team jersey.
Viewers never got to see the future pope’s reaction to what happens next, but he must have been ecstatic as Jenks strikes out Everett in two more pitches for a 5-3 Chicago win. The White Sox would go on to sweep the Astros for their first World Series win since 1917.
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“That was his thing. He liked to get out and go to a game once in a while,” Louis Prevost told the Chicago Tribune of his brother, the future pope. “Eat a hot dog. Have some pizza. Like any other guy in Chicago on the South Side.”
His favorite team may have fallen on harder times since then — the White Sox are an American League-worst 23-45 and 20.5 games behind the first-place Detroit Tigers in the Central Division — but Leo is still willing to put his fandom on display for the world to see.
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On Wednesday, he wore a White Sox hat along with his traditional papal cassock while blessing newly married couples in St. Peter’s Square outside the Vatican.
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Kelly and Gary DeStefano, who live in Haverhill, Mass., and are Boston Red Sox fans, gave him the hat. Kelly DeStefano told Boston.com they were just trying to get the new pope’s attention.
“I just wanted to make sure everyone at home knew that we did not turn on our team,” she told Boston.com. “It was all in joke and good fun.”
Chicago White Sox fans dress up like fellow White Sox fan Pope Leo XIV to watch a game against the Cubs on May 17 at Wrigley Field. (Paul Beaty / Associated Press)
It worked, with Boston.com reporting that Leo gave the couple a good-natured ribbing once he found out where they are from.
“You’re going to get in trouble for this,” he told them, in a video of the meeting.
“Don’t tell anyone in Massachusetts,” Kelly DeStefano replied.
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While Leo might be a little too busy to attend a game anytime soon, White Sox executive vice president, chief revenue and marketing officer Brooks Boyer said last month that the pope is welcome to return to Rate Field whenever he wants.
“He has an open invite to throw out a first pitch,” Boyer said. “Heck, maybe we’ll let him get an at-bat.”
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
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