CHICAGO — If you thought the city was running out of stories about the pope and the White Sox, well, this could go on for Pope Leo XIV’s entire tenure in the Vatican. We still don’t know exactly how he likes his Italian beef or who his favorite ’85 Bears player was.
But if you were curious where “Da Pope” — then known as Father Robert Prevost — sat during Game 1 of the 2005 World Series, well, you got an answer Monday afternoon as the team unveiled a mural just outside Section 140, where he was one of 41,206 who watched Bobby Jenks close out a 5-3 victory over the Houston Astros.
“He sat in row 19, seat 2,” said Nick Schmit, whose father, Eddie Schmit Jr., brought Prevost to the game. “My dad always sat in row 19, seat 1. He never gave that seat up to anybody. That was his seat. So when he took people, those people would sit next to him, usually.”
The Schmit family still has its late father’s season tickets. The Schmits have the first four seats in both rows 19 and 20 on the White Sox home dugout side and use them all the time.
“We go to a lot of games,” Nick told me. “We were going to give them up (this year). We were just … it’s too much sometimes. It’s tough, you know?”
He could’ve been talking about the cost (eight seats in their location run about $32,000 for the season) or the mental anguish of being a Sox fan in a time of unprecedented losing. I didn’t ask, but I’m guessing it was a little bit of both. (The White Sox, it should be noted, lost to the Seattle Mariners 5-1 on Monday to fall to 14-34.)
At Game 1 of the 2005 World Series, Father Robert Prevost sat in row 19, seat 2 at the White Sox’s home ballpark. (Jon Greenberg / The Athletic)
Last week, the Sox told me they were waiting until the pope’s official installation before talking details about honoring their new most famous fan (sorry, former President Barack Obama) at the ballpark. Well, that happened Sunday in Rome. On Monday, the artwork, located on a pillar outside of Sections 140-141, was shown to the world.
As the team celebrates its 125th anniversary — and the 20th anniversary of its World Series victory — the Sox highlighted the mural by pointing out the family’s long-standing relationship with the team — the late Eddie Schmit first got season tickets at Comiskey Park in the late 1970s — and how that led to the fateful moment of a future pope watching a World Series game 20 years ago.
“It’s a generational experience when you talk to people of why they’re White Sox fans,” White Sox senior vice president Brooks Boyer said at the event. “‘My grandfather was a White Sox fan, my father was a White Sox fan.’ However, that may come down through the generation, this family is no different. And they have stood with us through thick and thin. They understand what it is to be a White Sox fan. There’s a pleasure that comes along with it, and there’s been some pain that has come along with it.”
“A lot of pain,” one family member joked.
“A lot of fun too,” someone said.
Several Schmits nearly broke down in tears talking about the patriarch of the family, who died on July 22, 2020. While they half-joked with Boyer about getting a discount for their seats, they kept them even after a 121-loss season because they’re a part of their family legacy.
“All the nephews are home from college, all the nieces, they all go,” said Nick Schmit, who is one of five siblings. “They bring their friends and that’s what my dad wanted. He wanted the family to still go like we did growing up.”
The mural shows a picture of the Pope along with some biographical information (it says he was born in Dolton, Ill., which is actually where he grew up) and a smaller picture of Prevost with Eddie Schmit III and his son Eddie IV at the game. They’re the ones you might have seen on the viral clip of the Fox game broadcast.
Pope Leo XIV made the broadcast while at Game 1 of the 2005 World Series
— Joe Binder (@JoeBinder) May 9, 2025
How did someone find that crowd shot in the first place? It was Eddie IV who sent the video to the Sox on 35th blog. Years ago, he saved that shot of him at the game just to show people he was really there as a 5-year-old.
When the pope news came down, his family supplied the Sun-Times a picture of him and his grandfather at the game with Prevost behind them. Then Eddie IV, who is now 25, put an exclamation mark on it with the video.
“I didn’t know he was sitting next to us, or directly next to us,” he told me. “And when I looked back, I said, ‘Oh wow, OK, he was next to us.’ So I wanted to get that out there.”
He allowed that he probably could have kept it private, but he wanted it to be known who the pope really roots for.
“I’d rather everyone know that he was a Sox fan and not a Cubs fan,” he said. “I can’t stand the Cubs.”
Eddie IV doesn’t remember a ton from that game, but he can relive that moment every time he walks to his seats and sees himself as a little kid. Twenty years later, he’s still an avid fan, as much as the current rebuild pains him.
“I like to come out to the ballpark with all my buddies as much as we can,” he said. “And I get tickets whenever I want.”
Eddie Schmit III and Eddie Schmit IV pose in front of the Pope Leo XIV mural at Rate Field. (Jon Greenberg / The Athletic)
On a serious note, during a brief news conference in front of a phalanx of cameras and TV reporters who aren’t usually at White Sox games, Eddie IV highlighted why he’s so proud to call the pope his family friend.
“A lot of this is about the White Sox, and it should be more about what kind of guy the pope is,” he said. “I mean, you look at some of the things he’s done with his missions. It’s incredible. He’s been in places that are so poor, just trying to help other people. That’s why he was elected to be the next pope, because of all the good things he’s done around the world, and I’m sure he’s going to continue to do that.”
Though the mural will be a popular photo spot, what about the seat? There’s nothing yet to mark it as being special, and the rights to it belong to the family. Eddie III said he wanted to talk to his siblings about auctioning off opportunities to sit in the seat, with proceeds going to charity.
“My father was really good with charity,” he said.
Nick Schmit said his father would always brag about Prevost, telling them (and him) that he was going to be a cardinal and then the first American-born pope.
“Yeah, my dad always told us, ‘Oh, he’s going to be cardinal,’” he said. “And we’re like, ‘OK, Dad.’ You know, he was a good friend. … And then when he got elected, we were, like, Dad did this from heaven. Dad made it happen.”
But in 2005, he was just Father Bob, a friend of Eddie’s.
As the video and picture show, Prevost wore a jersey to the game, though no one I asked knew whose it was. Eddie III guessed Paul Konerko, who, of course, wore No. 14. And Prevost just might have joined the family at the old Redwood Lounge on 32nd and Wallace for a couple of postgame drinks. That was Eddie Schmit’s neighborhood bar, after all. (The Sun-Times even quoted him from there in a 2005 story about the Series, where he talked about his special voodoo doll that took down the Red Sox and Angels.)
No one knew they were sitting with the future leader of the Catholic faith that night.
It wasn’t unusual that Prevost was a White Sox fan. But it’s still mind-blowing that the pope is one.
“He was one of us,” Eddie III said.
(Top photo: Jon Greenberg / The Athletic)