If the utter implausibility of the new pope being a White Sox fan could have been overstated, it would reached that point within 48 hours of the election of Robert Francis Prevost. God knows everybody did their best, from the White Sox themselves, to the modern professional and social media landscape, to the black market t-shirt community.
But you know the concept still remains unnatural for minds to grasp because when Pope Leo XIV was photographed at the Vatican on Wednesday wearing a crisp, classic White Sox cap, the first thought everybody seemed to have is "That isn't photoshopped/AI?" I had to check two other sources to confirm, and then shared it on BlueSky with the Reuters caption and link attached to head those questions off at the pass.
Still nuts. www.reuters.com/pictures/pic...
— Jim Margalus (@soxmachine.com) 2025-06-11T17:11:47.085Z
It turns out the cap was not from the pope's personal collection, but a gift from Massachusetts newlyweds who traveled to Rome for a honeymoon blessing. He briefly donned it, blessed it, and returned it to couple.
While Google News surfaced headlines that the move "sent White Sox fans into meltdown" and "everyone is freaking out," Sox Machine summarizes its editorial approach to Pope Leo XIV's White Sox fandom as merely "the damndest thing," and pivots to wondering which particular cap was his saltiest, presuming that he won't be allowed to truly beat up another cap for the rest of his life. If he left for South America in 1985, then you can safely rule out the "Einhorn E," but a bunch of others remain in play.
Spare Parts
As consistently putrid as the White Sox were last year, comparisons to the 1962 Mets didn't really begin in earnest until after the trade deadline. The Rockies drew comparisons to the 2024 White Sox from the jump, and they've proven it to be more than recency bias at play. They provided a brief glimmer of hope last weekend when they swept the Marlins in Miami to go from nine to 12 wins, but that still put them on track for 31-131. They've since lost five in a row.
Jackson Jobe, who came into the season as a top-five prospect and had fared respectably in filling out of a deep Detroit rotation, is out for 2025 and (presumably) most of 2026 with Tommy John surgery. The good news for Detroit is that it's been thriving without his best work, but it's a ding against depth.
My big takeaway from James' expedition to Sacramento in April was that the White Sox were lucky to be making that trip so early in the season. Players expected the Sutter Health Park playing surface to take a beating since it has so few days off, and the rock-hard mound is being blamed for Pablo López's shoulder injury.
When you look into the actual text underneath The Athletic's poll results, the players seem to vote mostly based on the standings, which means the White Sox come off as horribly as any team that isn't hanging out in Sacramento. Like the actual standings, this year's results are more worth documenting as a base line for determining any sort of progress in 2026.
As Major League Baseball attempts to find a partner to pick up the rights ESPN opted out of, it's apparent that the league isn't going to be able to recoup the $550 million that the deal previously accounted for. It's even funnier when learning that MLB is the entity that pushed for opt-out language in the deal.
