Pope in a Sox hat

Regular readers of this column know that I am a Sox fan.

I was raised a Sox fan, being taken to games with my family as a child. I saw Dick Allen play; I watched Disco Demolition with my brother, a Steve Dahl fan, in 1979; I was stood up for my high school homecoming dance on Oct. 8, 1983, the day the White Sox lost the American League Championship Series to the Orioles three games to one with a walk-off 3-run homer in the 10th after nine scoreless innings.

When my husband and I were dating, in 1990, we spent a lot of time at old Comiskey Park, then in its last season. It was Hall of Famer Frank Thomas’ rookie year, sharing the infield with future managers Robin Ventura and Ozzie Guillen.

I was there for a playoff game in 2005 — I didn’t have an in for World Series tickets — and for the blackout game to get into the playoffs a year later.

Of course, everyone knows that the team’s fortunes have been more down than up, especially since the early 2000s. Last year, I was in Detroit for the White Sox’s record-setting 121st loss of the season, in a sea of Tigers fans celebrating a post-season berth in the same game.

When it came out that Pope Leo XIV was a Sox fan, the most common joke was that the team could use all the divine help it could get. When his election was announced May 8 (before game time), the team was 10-27 after a miserable 5-21 April.

Since then, things have picked up, with a 13-19 record between May 8 and June 12. It’s not great, but it’s not, y’know, historically bad. This year, for that, you’d have to look at the Colorado Rockies, on pace to shatter the record the White Sox set in 2024 and lose more than 130 games.

All that to say that I was genuinely tickled when I saw a photo posted of Pope Leo XIV wearing a Sox hat during his June 18 general audience. A video posted to social media showed that the hat was brought by newlyweds who attended the audience in their wedding clothes; the groom donned one as well for a picture with the pope.

There have also been a lot of jokes about the level of faith it takes to be a White Sox fan, the team that ESPN forgot in 2016 when they put up a graphic saying Chicago hadn’t seen a World Series win since 1908.

But I don’t think Pope Leo’s devotion to the White Sox says anything about his faith per se; it says that, like St. Peter, he’s human. He liked to go watch a ballgame with friends. I suspect he enjoyed the escape of watching sports, the very real recreation of being outside, with friends, looking at the green grass and blue sky and remembering that God is good, even if your team isn’t.

I hope he got a kick out of the archdiocesan celebration June 14 at Rate Field.