Chicago Native Pope Leo Is Being (Sort of) Credited With the Sudden Resurgence of the White Sox

It was a huge surprise when ABC News first reported that Pope Leo XIV was a Chicago Cubs fan shortly after his election in May 2025. The Chicago Cubs then embraced the news by celebrating it on the famous Wrigley Field marquee at the entrance to the park with the message "Hey Chicago! He's a Cubs Fan" and by posting a photo to X. 

However, the pope's brother, John Prevost, quickly corrected the record in an interview with WGN News, clarifying that Pope Leo XIV is actually a lifelong Chicago White Sox fan.

In May 2025, the White Sox were on their way to their second straight 100-loss season. In 2024, the Sox broke the modern record for losses with 121 defeats. The franchise, always a distant second to the Cubs in the hearts of the city, was teetering. The farm system was a joke; owner Jerry Reinsdorf refused to spend money on free agents, and his conservative, penny-pinching approach didn't impress the best ballplayers seeking $200 million in long-term contracts.  

The Sox have made the playoffs five times this century but have never gotten past the division series, most recently in 2021. Finally, Reinsdorf's niggardly attitude toward spending, a broken farm system, incompetent management, and a lack of energy and vision led to the catastrophic 2024-25 seasons.

Then, the U.S. pope, a Chicago native and White Sox fan, arrived. White Sox fans finally had something to cheer about. While 2025 was a lost season, Leo-mania began to grow, and with it, the fortunes of the hapless White Sox began to improve.

After the 2026 season started 6-13, fans and the media believed another losing season was on the way. Then, a miracle. Or so it seemed. The second-youngest team in baseball began to knock the cover off the ball. Leading the way in the home run department was a Japanese import, Munetaka Murakami.

"Mune" won the batting title, home run title, and runs-batted-in title ("Triple Crown") in Japan. But curiously, no other Major League teams were very interested. He couldn't hit the triple-digit fastballs in U.S. baseball and had more holes in his swing than Swiss cheese, said the scouts. Every other team took a pass, except the White Sox. They signed him for the bargain-basement price of $16 million over two years.

In the first two months of the season, Mune hit 20 homers, second best in the majors. Then he got hurt and missed six weeks; he is only now regaining his batting eye. But the scouts were half right. He does strike out a lot, but Major League pitchers know he can hit anything they throw to the plate. He has hit 25 home runs so far.

Along with Miguel Vargas (24 homers), a 26-year-old reclamation project from the Dodgers organization, and second-year man Colson Montgomery (25 homers), the Murakami-Vargas-Montgomery part of the batting order has Sox fans swooning. The team is slumping lately, but is given an 81% chance of winning the Central Division.  

The White Sox have adopted Pope Leo as a kind of mascot. They wanted to have a bobblehead night with the pope dressed in his white cassock holding a White Sox bat. The Vatican politely declined. But the marketing geniuses at Rate Field were only getting warmed up.

 “We’ve had sitting mayors of Chicago, we’ve had governors of Illinois that have been avid White Sox fans, we had a president of the United States in Barack Obama,” said Brooks Boyer, an observant Catholic who is the team’s chief marketing officer. “I didn’t expect anything bigger than the mayor when I started this job, but we’ve kind of climbed the ladder. What’s next? I mean, I feel like we’re one step away from God.” 

In Vatican City, Leo's "Popemobile" passed a bunch of White Sox fans who were chanting, "Go, White Sox."

Pope Leo joined in on the White Sox chants 😂🗣️

He got HYPED at the end 👏

(via clashroyal3/TT) pic.twitter.com/AKPYbas0YL

— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) June 19, 2025

The marketing department's next idea was a Pope Leo mitered hat giveaway.

New York Times:

Mr. Downey’s other promotional idea was to give away “the full pope get-up,” as he put it — the miter, robe and chasuble. He ran it by Father Hurley, who suggested sticking just to the hat.

The team planned to give out 1,500 pope hats to fans who bought a special ticket for the White Sox game this Tuesday against the Cincinnati Reds. The tickets sold out so quickly that they added 500 more. And then another 500.

Finally, Mr. Downey and Gareth Breunlin, the team’s vice president for marketing and advertising, approached Mr. Boyer sheepishly about giving the hat away to everyone who comes to the game. Mr. Downey recalled telling him, “The pope hat is going bonkers.”

No, the White Sox are not getting divine help. I think. But Pope Leo has given the city and the White Sox a boost of something they haven't had for years: pride. Hapless mayors, a third-world murder rate, street crime making life unbearable, and corruption that's gotten worse over the last decade had the city's residents hanging their heads in shame.

Then Pope Leo was elected, and suddenly, the world looked a little less grim, a little more hopeful. The White Sox's resurgence has very little to do with the improvement. But if sports teams serve as a uniting expedient for hugely diverse cities, the improving fortunes of the South Side baseball team haven't hurt at all.