{"id":653272,"date":"2026-03-30T21:55:16","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T21:55:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/653272\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T21:55:16","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T21:55:16","slug":"white-sox-shoutout-draws-smile-and-thumbs-up-from-pope-leo-in-rome","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/653272\/","title":{"rendered":"White Sox Shoutout Draws Smile and Thumbs Up from Pope Leo in Rome"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-start=\"0\" data-end=\"120\">It\u2019s not baseball season without Pope Leo making some noise, thanks to his Chicago White Sox fandom.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"122\" data-end=\"269\">Like clockwork, as spring returns, the Pope was greeted by a fellow Chicago native during a recent outing in Rome.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"271\" data-end=\"345\">\u201cGod bless the White Sox,\u201d shouted John Kilkus as the popemobile drove by.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"347\" data-end=\"395\">Pope Leo responded with a thumbs up and a smile.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"397\" data-end=\"570\">There has never been a pope as synonymous with baseball as Pope Leo XIV, though that may be because there has never been an American pope until now.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"572\" data-end=\"818\">Throughout 2025, he captured attention across the baseball world, signing balls, receiving uniforms and bats as gifts, appearing on baseball cards and bobbleheads, and bringing a unique sense of joy to the sport unlike any religious leader before him.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"820\" data-end=\"845\">We\u2019re here for all of it.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"847\" data-end=\"1012\">Stay with WorldBaseball.com as we continue to cover the intersection of Pope Leo and baseball, with new, fun, and engaging storylines emerging throughout the season.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1014\" data-end=\"1159\" data-is-last-node=\"\" data-is-only-node=\"\">Chris R. Vaccaro is a media executive, author, and professor from Long Island and serves as senior editorial advisor for World Baseball Network.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s not baseball season without Pope Leo making some noise, thanks to his Chicago White Sox fandom. Like&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":653273,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2379],"tags":[5,138,49,2561,4,396,2562],"class_list":{"0":"post-653272","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago-white-sox","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-chicago","10":"tag-chicago-white-sox","11":"tag-chicagowhitesox","12":"tag-mlb","13":"tag-white-sox","14":"tag-whitesox"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116320359369585316","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=653272"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653272\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/653273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=653272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=653272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=653272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}