IF POPE LEO XIV IS A SAD WHITE SOX FAN, HE’S DESTINED TO LOSE IN VATICAN CITY
The Cubs were misinformed and invited him to Wrigley Field, but the Pope’s older brother confirmed he’s a Sox fan — “Standing on his own two feet” — and must know his team is an all-time sports flop
Pope Leo XIV cannot be a White Sox fan. The supreme pontiff has no chance to teach Catholics about faith and morals when his favorite team lost 121 games last season and has lost 28 more early this season. Did the conclave consider that no baseball team ever has lost more than 231 games in two consecutive seasons?
When he was born at Mercy Hospital on the South Side, did it occur to Robert Francis Prevost that a quick ride west on 26th Street, with a left-hand turn on Shields, could take him to the home of the losingest team in American sports history? Only the Mets of 1962 and 1963 lost 231 games? The Sox one-upped them last year. Why not this year?
So it was no family favor when Pope Leo XIV’s older brother, John Prevost, said this to ABC7: “He’s a Sox fan.” He was given a choice by his father, a St. Louis Cardinals fan, when their mother grew up on the North Side — home of the Cubs. He picked a team that has won one World Series and thrown another via gambling loons since 1917. The team owner, Jerry Reinsdorf, cares so little about fans that he claims two women shot during a game were hit by gunfire outside the stadium, where four fans were injured in a hit-and-run collision on 35th Street and the aforementioned Shields Avenue. If the Sox eventually are contracted, will anyone care?
Pope Leo XIV should not care. He would not be a traitor. A hero!
“Standing on his own two feet,” John said of his team choice.
The white smoke from the Sistine Chapel had nothing to do with fireworks ignited from the Rate Field scoreboard, which rarely happens.
When he is formally inaugurated and says “Habemus Papam” or, “We have a Pope,” how about declaring he loves Pete Crow-Armstrong and has become a Cubs fan? Earlier in the day, a report indicated he loved the Cubs. Said John Prevost: “Whoever said Cubs on the radio got it wrong.” Of course, team chairman Tom Ricketts was out front with a big welcome when we still await word on an extension for Kyle Tucker.
“Not only would we welcome Pope Leo XIV to Wrigley Field, he could sing ‘Take Me Out to the Ballgame,’ ” Ricketts said in a statement. “Or, since three of his predecessors visited Yankee Stadium, including Pope Paul VI, who delivered the 1965 ‘Sermon on the Mound,’ we would invite the Pontiff to do the same at the Friendly Confines.”
So much for the nice words and a salute on the famed marquee: “Hey, Chicago. He’s a Cubs fan!” At least the Cubs are 22-16 and should make the playoffs.
The Sox? Everything about them is sad.
“Family always knows best, and it sounds like Pope Leo XIV’s lifelong fandom falls a little closer to 35th and Shields," the team said. "Some things are bigger than baseball, but in this case, we’re glad to have a White Sox fan represented at the Vatican. A pinstripe White Sox jersey with his name on it and a hat is already on the way to Rome, and of course, the Pontiff always is welcome at his ballpark.”
Why? To participate in the death toll? I was there in September and paid to sit in Section 121 — get it? — to watch the record-breaking wickedness. I am among 1.3 billion Catholics who follow Pope Leo XIV. If he wants, he can join me for churros.
Allow me to bless him. One trip to the South Side would expose him to Ozzie Guillen, who might call him: “A f—ing fag.”
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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.