Can Pope Leo XIV help flagging White Sox economy? Judging from buzz and jersey sales, yes

CHICAGO — Late Tuesday morning, Jose Guzman stopped into Grandstand Sports at 600 W. 35th Street looking for a new White Sox jersey.

Guzman, 36, already has plenty in his closet, but there’s a new guy who caught his eye.

He wears No. 14, he’s a little older than the average rookie and he’s also from the area. Maybe you’ve heard of him: Robert Prevost from nearby Dolton. He went to St. Mary’s of the Assumption back in the day and he even taught a little at St. Rita.

“My aunt met him,” Guzman said. “I’ve seen him before. I never met him, but he used to go to my church.”

Prevost is, of course, Pope Leo XIV, the first American pope and, presumably, the first one to also root for the White Sox. I say presumably because a lot of religious leaders support lost causes and minister to the downtrodden. But how many share a number with Paul Konerko?

Guzman came to the right place. Grandstand is an emporium of Sox gear, and Josh Ganal, one of the co-owners, went to the back and brought back a Pope Leo 14 White Sox jersey in the home white with pinstripes, which retails for about $220.

White Sox jerseys aren’t exactly hot sellers right now. They only sell a few different current ballplayers at the Sox stadium, and Grandstand Sports isn’t investing a lot of space into the current squad either.

“I’m telling you, I think Pope Leo is probably overselling ballplayers in the last two years,” said Josh’s wife Stephanie, who helps run the store her parents opened in 1989.

How many jerseys have they sold?

“I would say a few hundred because we have online too,” Stephanie Ganal said.

That also says a lot about how many Luis Robert Jr. and Andrew Vaughn jerseys they’re selling these days.

Late last week, Pope Leo madness took over Chicago. After the white smoke appeared, it was a shock to see an American and even more to see a South Sider.

Once people found out he was a Sox fan, forget about it.

The Ganals didn’t have to wait for Prevost’s brother to confirm the new pope’s fandom like the rest of us.

“We started to hear from customers and people in the neighborhood,” Stephanie said. “Obviously, this is a really tight neighborhood. So we started to hear from a lot of people that he was actually from the city and the South Side.”

So that got the wheels in motion and Josh started making jerseys. (Grandstand actually works with the team to press the numbers on jerseys when there are player call-ups.)

“You know,” he said, “it’s one of those things where we have a business that allows us to customize a jersey and put a name and number on it. So why not? Think about it, there’s what, over a billion followers in that faith, right? So people want a feel-good story and people want to be the first to do everything. It really wasn’t my idea. I cannot take credit for it. I was just inspired, let’s put it that way.”

The local ABC affiliate showed Josh holding up a jersey in a TV package that ended up on national TV and the next thing you know …

“That Saturday we opened and there were people lined up at 9:15 and we don’t open until 10,” Stephanie said. “They were lining up waiting for jerseys.”

And it wasn’t the usual crowd of Sox fans.

“It’s grandma and grandpa standing in line because they’re going to go to church on Sunday and they want to be the first ones with a Pope Leo jersey,” Josh said. “Hopefully, it was the talk of the town and the talk of the church.”

Now, the orders are coming in from all over. They sent four to Las Vegas the other night, shipped some to California and New York. They got a military order out of South Korea and at least one inquiry from Italy (a camera crew from an Italian news channel came in last week).

At the official team store at the ballpark, which is now run by Fanatics, an employee told me he made about 10 jerseys during the last home series. There was a lot of interest, he said.

But officially, the Sox are playing it cool and trying to be respectful. Mostly.

Thursday, the Cubs jumped the gun and announced the new pope was a fan on their Wrigley Field marquee after an erroneous report on ABC.

After the truth came out, the Sox had some fun with it.

The Sox then honored the pope with a pregame video Friday, but they haven’t done much else.

“It would be premature to comment in any detail, but safe to say, we are having fun and creative conversations with the Chicago Archdiocese,” White Sox vice president of communications Scott Reifert wrote in an email.

People can make their own pope jerseys at the team store (some have even used Roman numerals for the XIV), but the team won’t be selling chintzy T-shirts or making the players wear City Connect cassocks.

“Obviously, we’re going to be respectful to him and make sure we’re doing things the right way,” said Brooks Boyer, the team’s senior vice president/chief revenue and marketing officer.

Boyer is Catholic and a former Notre Dame basketball player, so he’s thrilled about this turn of events. And it feels like every Catholic in the South Side or south suburbs knows someone who knows the pope, which makes the story even more tangible. The South Side is like a big small town in a lot of ways.

“My son’s teacher at Montini told the class the pope did her graduation mass at St. Rita (High School),” he said. “It’s like the first time the pope is a real person, and it’s super awesome he’s a Sox fan.”

Boyer and Reifert were working for the Sox in 2008 when a South Side guy ran for president and won. Reifert lived near Barack Obama in the Hyde Park area and their daughters were friends. Back then, the team even created a webpage to organize their stories before Obama’s inauguration. Given that he was constantly wearing a White Sox hat, it goosed sales in the winter of 2008.

“Absolutely, they feel very similar, although the Obama experience took longer while the pope was overnight,” Reifert wrote.

“We had a sitting president who was a Sox fan,” Boyer said. “I didn’t think it could be any bigger. Well, there’s a pope.”

Obama, then a senator, threw out a first pitch at an ALCS game in 2005 and he was at Game 1 of the World Series. So was Prevost, who was working for the Augustinian order at the time. No one knew he was, though a lot of people suspect Prevost might have found his way to the late Ed Farmer’s radio booth. Farmer, a one-of-a-kind personality, was a proud St. Rita grad and Prevost taught there.

“Ed would’ve called me and said, ‘Find someone to fill in for me on the radio. I’m going to Rome for the installation. St. Rita!'” Boyer said with a laugh.

A picture of Prevost at the game that was published in the Sun-Times led intrepid investigators to find him in the actual game footage on Fox. He appeared as nervous as anyone as closer Bobby Jenks tried to lock down the win over the Astros.

“It’s obviously great,” Boyer said. “Any team would be thrilled that at a key moment for the franchise, the pope was there and wearing a jersey.”

It’s no secret that it’s been a bad few years for the White Sox. Just after they rebuilt the team to make the playoffs in 2020 and 2021, they fell apart and plummeted to never-before-seen depths. As you might remember, they set the record for losses (121) in a season last season. This year, they’re 13-29, which is just the worst record in the American League. Their games aren’t on Comcast, which cuts out a large chunk of the local market, thus depriving fans of more suffering.

But all of a sudden, there’s this out-of-nowhere feel-good story. The pope, of all people, is a White Sox fan. (And not just Donn Pall.)

“Something like this is a nice little shot in the arm for the organization,” Boyer said.

Not just the organization. All of Chicago is rallying behind the story, and some are monetizing it. Obvious Shirts has a whole collection, with some proceeds going to two charities. Portillo’s is selling “The Leo,” described as “a divinely seasoned Italian beef, baptized in gravy, and topped with your choice of sweet or hot peppers.”

“I’d like to get a count on the fake T-shirts that are out there,” Stephanie Ganal said.

Even Boyer, who should probably be policing this kind of thing, said he’s gotten a kick out of the ones he’s seen online.

This story has hit home for so many people. The pictures of the pope at an Aurelio’s, the stories about him teaching at local schools, and yes, the idea that he has groused about the Sox, just like you. As Boyer said, it makes an almost mythical figure feel real.

“The pope has 100% second-guessed Ozzie,” Boyer said.

I ran into former White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen last Friday and he said his wife, Ibis, had been in front of the TV crying for two days. They’ve been to mass at the Vatican before and now they want to return with a White Sox jersey.

So do the Ganals, who want to bring a total care package. Imagine making a pilgrimage to Italy just to talk about Tim Elko?

For people like the Ganals at Grandstand, who make their living based on fans’ attachment to a losing team, they’re praying that this story is a harbinger for brighter days on the South Side, where baseball is religion and faith is waning.

“We were making jokes, saying we’re hoping that the pope will help and give some form of blessing on the South Side,” Stephanie Ganal said. “But we’ll see.”

Fixing the White Sox? That might be a job for someone of even a higher power than the pope.

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