In the frantic hours after it emerged Cardinal Robert Prevost had been elected to serve as Pope Leo XIV, while the Catholic world scrambled to find out more information about the surprise choice of pontiff, Americans were immediately wondering about one aspect of the Augustinian’s character.
Not his position on social issues or the rampant speculation about whether he was going to be as liberal as his predecessor. No, it was a matter of much more serious ecclesiastical import than that. As a native of Chicago, they were desperate to know whether his baseball allegiance lies with the White Sox or the Cubs.
In any city of divided loyalties, you can tell a lot about a person from the team they support. Ask a Scouser, the difference between those who follow Liverpool and Everton. Get a Mancunian to explain what shouting for United over City says about an individual.
After the Cubs issued a swift congratulatory post claiming him as one of their own, Prevost’s brother John gave an interview to the local NBC affiliate correcting the record. Like most people on the south side of the Windy City, it turns out the first American to become pope grew up supporting the White Sox. When he was born, the club had gone 38 years without a World Series victory. That barren run would last another half-century before coming to an end in 2005.
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Obviously thrilled to put one over on their noisy neighbours, the Sox put an image of their now most-famous fan, with a custom Pope Leo 14 jersey, on the big screen at Rate Field last week. To thunderous acclaim. The same stadium he was in one night two decades ago, watching his side win game one of the 2005 World Series.
His sudden ascension to the highest church office has also got New York Knicks basketball fans in a bit of a tizzy
Then living in Rome, he made it back to the midwest to see them take the first step in sweeping the Houston Astros. Footage was unearthed showing him as television cameras panned the crowd in the ninth inning. The Chicago Sun-Times found a photo of the padre on his mobile phone in a background shot the same evening. A portrait of the leader of 1.4 billion Catholics behaving like a normal person.
“If he’s a White Sox fan, then he can identify with suffering,” 72-year-old Stanley Brown told the New York Times. “But it doesn’t matter how bad they are, we stay loyal as Sox fans. That’s not something you just give up.”
Regarded by many in the city as a more blue-collar and down-home alternative to the eternally fashionable, hipster darling Cubs up at quaint old Wrigley Field, the White Sox were canny enough to announce that a team hat and pinstripe shirt have been hastily dispatched to the Vatican.
Within days of his election, Chicagoans could purchase all manner of baseball-flavoured Leo-related memorabilia. A range of T-shirts show the pope, replete with mitre, swinging at a pitch. Others rather hopefully declare the Sox, currently bottom of their division and in dire need of some divine intervention, “God’s team”.
Those who grew up with Prevost testify he wasn’t much of an athlete in high school, but he’s been an avid tennis player throughout his peripatetic career in the church. At Villanova University, that sliver of Philadelphia academia most usually associated in Irish minds with runners from Ronnie Delany to Sonia O’Sullivan, former classmates have also told reporters their pal assiduously followed the college basketball team from afar. Even when billeted in Peru, he was an active participant in group chats tracking the annual progress of the Wildcats in the NCAA’s March Madness.
Knocking about campus in the mid-1970s, around the same time a promising miler named Eamonn Coghlan was making a name for himself there, Bob Prevost was apparently a skinny undergraduate studying mathematics while bound for holy orders. Aside from causing a big stir at Villanova, his sudden ascension to the highest church office has also got New York Knicks basketball fans in a bit of a tizzy. Even though he has never professed any interest in them or their fortunes.
As their team navigates this season’s NBA play-offs, Jalen Brunson, Josh Hart and Mikal Bridges, three Wildcat alumni, are bulwarking the Knicks’ effort. For a tortured fan base who have been waiting more than half a century for a title, the same university delivering America a pope and three of their current starting five is somehow regarded as evidence their team is now anointed from on high. Sanctified in some way or other. Because the lord moves in mysterious ways, usually channelling his power through point guards. Apparently.
For game three of their series against the Celtics last Saturday, at least one Knicks supporter turned up wearing a Brunson 11 jersey over full papal regalia. It proved yet again that sport and religion are undefeated at prompting irrational behaviour. There have also been unconfirmed reports that, despite living in Italy and being rather consumed by ecumenical matters this past while, the new pope has kept a keen eye on the team some dub “The Nova Knicks”. He surely has nothing better to be doing.
“His Alma Mater Is VILLANOVA UNIVERSITY (BRUNSON, HART And BRIDGES Won NCAA Rings At VILLANOVA),” tweeted Spike Lee, movie director and courtside fixture at Madison Square Garden through thick and mostly thin. “What A HOLY BLESSING. THE KNICKERBOCKERS ARE GONNA WIN THE 2024-2025 NBA WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP. IT IS DIVINITY. GOD BLESS.”
Lord, have mercy.
