White Sox throw Pope Leo XIV hat night, lose to Reds in 10th
Chicago's most famous South Sider doesn't technically live on the South Side anymore, but the White Sox brought his hometown to him anyway. On August 11, the club handed out custom papal mitre hats to fans filing into Rate Field for a full-blown promotion built around Pope Leo XIV, the Dolton-born, Chicago-raised pontiff who grew up as Robert Prevost and reportedly attended Game 1 of the 2005 World Series before he ever put on the collar.
The pope's Sox fandom isn't a bit the team invented for a bobblehead calendar. Leo XIV has been photographed wearing a White Sox hat at the Vatican and has openly needled Cubs fans during public appearances, so a stadium full of the club's faithful showing up in matching bishop hats was less a stretch than a natural next step. Barstool Chicago caught the scene in the concourse, where fans lined up to snap photos in front of a mural of the pope decked out in full White Sox regalia.
It’s Pope Hat night and White Sox Fans are lining up to take a pic with Pope Leo XIV’s mural
It wasn't just a hat handout, either. The night leaned all the way into the bit, with a fifth-inning sign of peace and Southpaw the mascot trading his usual gear for a chasuble and mitre of his own. Barstool Chicago's own coverage got in on the puns, playing off the papal greeting as fans in full mitre-hat regalia wandered the stadium.
On the field, the Sox actually looked good early. A first-inning homer off the bat of a Sox player named Doyle put Chicago up 1-0 against Cincinnati, giving Barstool Chicago the easy layup of a pun on Colorado's Brenton Doyle, a different guy entirely on a different team. It's the kind of coincidence that writes itself on a night this theatrical.
First pitch of the game and Brenton Doyle sends it into a sea of Pope hats.
The good vibes didn't hold. Cincinnati clawed back and forced extras, and the Reds ultimately walked away with a 5-4 win, spoiling the giveaway night for the home crowd that packed in for one of the Sox's better-attended dates of the season. Dante summed up the whole spectacle after the fact: custom Pope Leo mitre hats, a papal seventh-inning stretch, and a ballpark experience unlike anything else on the MLB calendar this year.
The White Sox Held The World's First "Pope Night" At The Ballpark Last Night, Complete with Custom Pope Leo Mitre Hat Giveaways, A 7th Inning Stretch "Peace Be With You", And More @barstoolchicago @StoolBaseball t.co/usz8NR6QuM
A loss stings less when the promotion is this good. Pope Hat Night is the rare crossover moment where a franchise's biggest celebrity fan actually shows up in the building's iconography, and it's hard to imagine another team topping mitre hats and a mascot in a chasuble anytime soon. The White Sox may have dropped the game, but they won the night.
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