Let's start with the facts - the White Sox were 60-102 in 2025. They were also 61-101 in 2023. The year in between they were 41-121, finsihing just one game up on teh famously-shit Mets of 1962 who went 40-122. The White Sox were laughably bad with seemingly no future. And then you get this year, where they go 84-78, and if anything that was an underperformance on a pythag record of 88-74. They are legitimately a decent team after being legitimately a terrible team for a number of years. This is sudden, and shocking and inexplicable - except for one small thing in that the current Pope is a Chicago White Sox fan.
I remember watching CNN when Pope Leo (Cardinal Prevost) was announced, stunned like most that they picked an American. It seemed inconceivable they would. Hell, for centuries it seemed inconceivable they would look outside Europe. That obviously ended some time back, but still to with an American was stunning given our outsized importance in the world and, while being a Christian country, a country where Cathlocism is not the top religious sect. Granted, Leo was most recently archbishop in Peru, and hadn't live in America for a long time - but he speaks English and it is very clear he is a sports fan.
That last part is just weird to think about. It hit a crescendo when the Nova Knicks won their title, with of course the three notable Villanova alums (Brunson, Hart, Bridges) where Pope Leo was an alum. But the real connection was Chicago, where he grew up. There were a lot of tweets that came out when he was elected around how strange it is that the pope "would remember the career of Mitch Trubisky" and what-not, but that is strange. The Pope is this god-like figure (literally). Now, notably recent popes have been sports fans, like Pope Francis being a big Argentina soccer fan (and his predecessor Benedict a big German soccer fan), but add to it the inclusiveness of US Sports (the national leagues taking precedence over Team USA) and it got just that much weirder.
The capper was when the video of him at Game 1 of the 2005 World Series came out. I still wonder what intern sat through re-watching the TV tape of that game seeing if he would show up on camera, and what do you know? He did, and he did for a while. That is divine stuff working literally 20 years before his papacy would begin. At that moment, I watched that clip in awe but I also had a huge weight lifted off me, as a realize that my Astros, the team that lost the 2005 World Series, were destined to lose. It was memorably the closest sweep of all time - the game he attended was the "least competitive", a fairly routine 5-3 White Sox win.
The next three all featured some ridiculousness that went in favor of the White Sox - from Konerko's grand slam to take a 6-4 lead (after a controversial wrongly called HBP), and the Podsednik walk off HR after he memorably did not hit a homer all season, to Game 3 which the Sox won in 14 innings after coming back from a 4-0 deficit, winning on a home run by journeyman Geoff Blum, and Game 4 which they won 1-0. It was magical - that Sox team was great already (99-63, 7-1 in the playoffs heading into the World Series) but that win seemed divine.
It all came rushing back when right before the playoffs started there were two notable Pope moments. The first is when he was talking to people on a flight to Europe, a passenger asked him what he thought about the White Sox making the playoffs after having the worst record the year before, and the Pope corrected him that it was the worst record over the "past two years." Maybe more than anything this shows how still connected he is to the sport - he literally knew that they have been incredibly bad two straight years. Then, to double down, he released a statement / blessing for the White Sox. This was the capper. I can't be surprsied that they then brushed aside the Astros (who admittedly, are not good) so easily, and are now 2-0 up on Cleveland heading back to Chicago.
The White Sox are the perfect team of destiny because in this case the Vicar of Christ is literally backing them openly and publicly. How can anyone compete? I mean, so far, no one has. Also helping the case right now is I don't know if a Pope has ever been more popular in the USA than he is, at least for left-leaning Catholics like yours truly.
My worry when he was elected was that he would be somewhat too conservative and, more worryingly, give Trump someone to take credit for, and saddle up to - you could've almost hear in his head saying "I brought you a US pope!" Shockingly, he didn't and if anything Pope Leo has come out against this administration and their beliefs, to the points JD Vance (converted Catholic) literally came out saying he thought Leo should educate himself on issues, which is about as dumb as a move he could make if he wasn't already so politically un-savvy. More than that, Pope Leo has been remarkably level-headed, most recently comign out against AI at a time where that is such a frougth subject. Truthfully, Pope Leo has lived up to every expectation as a Pope. Beyond that, it is just still weird, and cool, that he is American and a sports fan. And for that reason, more than any other, I am all with the White Sox. Murukami is just the cherry on top.
