⚾️ Chicago White Sox Give Away 40,000 Pope Hats: 5 Things To Know 🔌
Weekend Plug-in 🔌
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“Best day at work ever.”
That’s how my friend Bob Smietana responded when I asked if he enjoyed covering “Pope Night” at the Chicago White Sox game Tuesday — as the team gave away 40,000 miter-shaped hats in honor of its most famous fan, Pope Leo XIV.
In the world of the Godbeat, Smietana is no rookie. He has reported on religion for 27 years for news organizations ranging from The Tennessean to Christianity Today.
Now a national correspondent for Religion News Service based near Chicago, he texted me last week to ask if I had any advice for a soon-to-be first-timer in an MLB press box. (I might have mentioned once or twice or maybe 200 times here at Weekend Plug-in that I love delving into faith and baseball.)
“Don’t cheer in the press box?” I replied to Smietana, making sure to include a smiley face emoji. “Seriously, you’re a pro. Just follow the press guidelines, and you’ll be fine. Have a great time!”
“It’s a good thing it’s not at Fenway!” he answered.
Did I mention that Smietana is a lifelong Boston Red Sox fan? In fact, in a 2024 RNS opinion column titled “I am not going to hate you,” he allowed, “There are trivial things I love to hate, like the New York Yankees.”
But this is a column about the other Sox — the Windy City ones whose connection to the first U.S.-born pope thrust the franchise into the international spotlight.
Religion News Service’s Bob Smietana covers the Chicago White Sox’s “Pope Night” promotion at Rate Field. (Photo provided by Bob Smietana)
Smietana’s brilliant lede captured the spirit of Pope Night:
CHICAGO (RNS) — On a hot August night on the South Side of Chicago, Rate Field, home of the White Sox, turned into a church of baseball, filled to capacity with true believers who sang, passed the peace, cheered on a celebrity nun and, of course, wore their pope hats.
Those hats, emblazoned with the Sox logo, were given to every fan who entered the park on Tuesday (Aug. 11). It was, according to team officials, the biggest promotional giveaway in White Sox history, with more than 40,000 pope hats given away. The night was a testimony to the resurgent White Sox, who appear to be playoff-bound after three years of losing 100 games a season, as well as to the appeal of Pope Leo XIV, a longtime fan of the team and Chicago native.
“It doesn’t matter your religion or your denomination,” said Brooks Boyer, chief revenue and marketing officer for the White Sox. “Everyone respects the pope. For us, it’s obviously fun that he is a White Sox fan.”
Here are five interesting things to know about Pope Night:
1. Concerns that a Leo bobblehead — the original idea — might be deemed disrespectful led to pope hats.
New York Times writer Tania Ganguli detailed all the behind-the-scenes maneuvering in a fascinating piece — published before the giveaway — headlined “A pope from Chicago was elected. The White Sox were resurrected.”
In the Times’ “The Morning” newsletter Sunday, Ganguli noted:
I went to Chicago last month to get a sense of the excitement and speak to people in the organization. I attended the no-frills Mass that the team hosts before every Sunday home game, where stadium workers sit next to players, coaches and executives at gray picnic tables. I visited the seat where the pope sat for Game 1 of the 2005 World Series (an incredible view, especially for a World Series game) and, for likely the only time in my life, saw the world as the pope might have seen it.
Mike Downey, the team’s senior director of promotions and marketing, tried so hard to make a pope bobblehead happen. He was planning his daughter’s baptism when I reached out Thursday night with some fact-checking. The bobblehead idea, he told me, was the third thought he had when he found out the pope was a White Sox fan — after “Oh my god,” and “Can we get him to throw out the first pitch one day?”
The church was less excited by the bobblehead idea, though I do wonder if the pope secretly finds it fun; most of the American Catholics I spoke with did. Alas, a Vatican press official did not respond to my email requesting an interview.
2. As evidenced by his World Series attendance, Leo — then known as Cardinal Robert Prevost — is a true White Sox fan. (Sorry, Cubs.)
In fact, Leo welcomed A.J. Pierzynski, the primary catcher for the 2005 championship team, to the Vatican earlier this summer.
In that private audience, the former White Sox player learned that Game 1 — where cameras captured Leo — was not the only World Series game the future pope attended, as Pierzynski noted in a story by The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal:
His reaction to receiving the ball Pierzynski caught to end Game 1?
“Oh my gosh, he was like, ‘This is unbelievable.’ He was like, ‘No way, this is the ball?’ And he literally said, ‘I was at Game 2, too. But nobody knows that. They didn’t find me.’”
3. Is the pope Catholic? The obvious answer is yes. What about Chicago — is it Catholic? That may be a lesser-known truth.
The Times’ Ganguli provided this helpful insight:
Chicago has a large Catholic population, and the Archdiocese of Chicago is the third-largest diocese in the United States. According to the Pew Research Center, 59 percent of adults in the city identify as Christian and 29 percent say they are Catholic, the largest of any denomination. The White Sox have hosted a small Mass for stadium employees for 30 years, when the Bertucci family, which still runs the Patio, the field-level hospitality area where the Mass is held, organized it.
A month after the pope’s election, the White Sox helped the archdiocese schedule a public Mass at Rate Field, where the team plays. About 35,000 tickets were sold at $5 each, during a season when the White Sox averaged 17,849 fans a game. Some tickets wound up on the secondary market for more than $1,000, according to The Chicago Sun-Times.
4. The tenets of the church of baseball place a high priority on ticket sales, whether marketing Catholic affection for the pope or fans’ love for “Star Wars.”
In his story on Pope Night, Jay Cohen of The Associated Press explained:
Fun is the overarching theme when it comes to stadium giveaways, and business has been good at major league ballparks this year.
An array of creative promotions — everything from the New York Mets handing out fake glasses and mustaches for a Bobby Valentine Disguise Night to the Texas Rangers giving away a Nolan Ryan bloody lip jersey — has played at least a small role in an MLB-wide average attendance of 29,618 through Tuesday’s games, the highest such number for a full season since 2017.
Bobbleheads remain popular — like the Brandon Nimmo Bull Riding bobblehead in Texas, or the butter-churning Nick Kurtz “Big Amish” bobblehead with the Athletics — but it’s not just those iconic figurines that are drawing big crowds. The Brewers handed out 25,000 bar dice sets to fans 21 and over on Saturday, and they had a crowd of 40,625 at American Family Field.
At the Chicago Tribune, columnist Paul Sullivan pointed out:
Someone suggested a pope-mobile bullpen cart.
Could there be a point of oversaturation? Last year brought us the Mass for the pope, and a mural of the pope at the ballpark. Maybe the Sox are using their association with the pope too much. Or maybe the pope is an everlasting gift from God to the Sox marketing department?
5. Even Pope Night couldn’t guarantee a White Sox victory. There was no divine intervention in Tuesday night’s result.
From Smietana’s piece:
The game itself tested the faith of fans at times. The White Sox took an early lead, thanks to a leadoff home run from center fielder Brenton Doyle and four no-hit innings from starting pitcher Sean Burke. The Reds tied the game on an RBI single by Reds catcher Tyler Stephenson. They then took the lead on a sacrifice fly in the bottom of the 10th, quieting the crowd.
In the end, even the pope could not save the Sox, at least on this night. The game ended 5-4 on a pop-up, with the tying run still on base and Cincinnati closer Emilio Pagán on the mound.
But the 40,000 fans will keep the faith. And the team will be back at it Wednesday.
For the record, the White Sox did win Wednesday.
As for Smietana, he said he came away from Pope Night reminded that “there is magic in baseball.”
Inside The Godbeat
In a recent Plug-in column, I mentioned meeting and falling in love with Tamie, my wife of 36 years, at Oklahoma Christian University.
This week, Religion Unplugged’s managing editor, Cassidy Grom, has a fascinating essay on the dating culture at Christian colleges. Her piece is tied to Hulu’s upcoming new series “Ring By Spring Break” in Cabo.
The Final Plug
I made a quick trip to Kentucky this past weekend to cover the 225th anniversary of the Cane Ridge Revival.
“America’s Pentecost” is how one historian described that famous camp meeting the second week of August 1801. The gathering drew thousands and gave birth to the Restoration Movement, also known as the Stone-Campbell Movement.
Religious streams that trace their modern-day roots to the movement include a cappella Churches of Christ, independent Christian Churches and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).
Happy Friday, everyone! Enjoy the weekend.
Bobby Ross Jr. writes the Weekend Plug-in column for Religion Unplugged and serves as editor-in-chief of The Christian Chronicle. A former religion writer for The Associated Press and The Oklahoman, Ross has reported from all 50 states and 20 nations. He has covered religion since 1999.