White Sox baseball fans sporting custom-designed black and gold mitre-style hats celebrated Pope Leo XIV, a fellow diehard Sox fan, at a pope-themed game in Chicago on Tuesday. Source: OSV News.
Dominican Sister Mary Jo Sobieck of Springfield, Illinois, threw the first pitch, and fans shook hands with the “sign of peace”, led by the Chicago Archdiocese’s Fr Tom Hurley, during the fifth inning at Rate Field, home of Pope Leo’s favourite baseball team.
White Sox management handed out “pope hats” to more than 38,000 fans who showed up at the third game in a series against the Cincinnati Reds. The promo project started out as a fan giveaway for the first 2500 tickets, which sold quickly and it added another fast-selling 500.
Management expanded the promo to the full stadium capacity and the tickets flew.
“The only anxiety was: Can we get 40,000 here by the time of this day? So as soon as we figured out we could, it’s been a lot of fun to be part of,” Brooks Boyer, White Sox executive vice president, said in a story about the Pope Leo-themed game written for the team’s website.
“The place was capacity,” Richard King, a die-hard Sox fan who watched the game on TV, said.
Mr King, 78, grew up on Chicago’s Southside and has been following his team since he was seven. King, a daily Massgoer and a member of the Knights of Columbus, said the fifth inning “sign of peace” and having Catholicism so openly on display was “great!”
He expected the event would raise interest and more curiosity about the Catholic faith.
Pope Leo, a Chicago native who grew up in the suburb of Dolton, has been pictured sporting a White Sox baseball cap at the Vatican, and has received multiple Sox-themed presents since his election as pontiff in May 2025.
In the months that followed Pope Leo’s election, the ballpark was outfitted with papal reminders including a mural of the pope at the entrance to the section where he sat during the World Series matchup and markers on the chair he sat in.
Then, a major shareholder of the White Sox told the media the Pope told him “he’d love to” throw the first pitch in a new stadium –“schedule permitting” – that is being envisioned for the team’s future.
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Pope Leo night at White Sox baseball park maxes out stadium capacity (By Simone Orendain, OSV News)
