Pope Leo XIV received the ball from a game he attended as a White Sox fan
Pope Leo XIV received in the Vatican an unusual gift, but one that is highly symbolic for his personal biography and the sports history of Chicago: the baseball with which the first game of the 2005 World Series ended. The ball was presented to him by A.J. Pierzynski, former catcher for the Chicago White Sox and one of the recognizable members of the team that won the Major League Baseball championship title that year. According to a report by the Associated Press, it was not officially clear exactly when the exchange took place, but on June 25, 2026, Pierzynski published photos of the meeting in the Vatican and said that it was an exceptional honor to meet the pope and present him with an item connected to a game that the then Robert Francis Prevost had attended from the stands. Thus, after more than two decades, a sports memory ended up with the man who in the meantime became the head of the Catholic Church.
According to the post reported by AP, Pierzynski stated that his seven-year-old self, at the time of his First Communion, could never have imagined that one day he would meet the Holy Father. In the same message, he emphasized that he had presented the pope with the ball from the final out of the first game of the 2005 World Series, precisely the one that the future pope attended as a fan. MLB.com reported that it was the ball from the final moments of the game in which the Chicago White Sox defeated the Houston Astros 5-3, and the last moment of the encounter occurred when Bobby Jenks struck out Adam Everett, while Pierzynski was behind home plate. That detail gives the gift additional weight: it is not merely a souvenir from a championship season, but an object from the final moment of a game that Leo XIV personally witnessed before becoming one of the most recognizable people in the world.
A sports memory with historical weight
In baseball, balls from the final moments of major games often have the status of memorabilia with almost archival value. They do not represent only the result, but also a concrete physical trace of a moment that is written into the history of a club, its players and its fans. In this case, the symbolism is even more pronounced because it connects three levels of the story: the White Sox championship season, Robert Prevost's long-standing fan loyalty and his later election as pope. According to MLB's summary of the 2005 World Series, the White Sox defeated the Houston Astros in that series by an overall score of 4-0 and won their first title since 1917, ending one of the longest waits for a title in the club's history. The gift that Pierzynski brought to the Vatican is therefore not just a sporting curiosity, but a reminder of a season that had exceptional emotional meaning for Chicago White Sox fans.
The first game of the series was played on October 22, 2005, at what was then U.S. Cellular Field in Chicago. According to MLB.com, the White Sox took an early lead, Houston came back into the game, but Chicago regained control thanks to key hits and a firm finish by the bullpen. The 5-3 result was the first step toward the complete conquest of the series, and the team then continued an unbeaten run until the final triumph in the fourth game. AP states that the future pope was then known as Robert Prevost, or Father Bob, and that he watched the game as a White Sox fan. When his connection with the club is discussed today, that very game is often highlighted as the liveliest proof that this is not a story constructed after the fact, but a long-term fan affiliation.
Robert Prevost, Chicago and the White Sox
The official biography of the Holy See states that Robert Francis Prevost was elected pope on May 8, 2025, and that he took the name Leo XIV. The same biography emphasizes that he is the 267th successor of Saint Peter, the first pope from the United States of America and the first Augustinian in the history of the Catholic Church to be elected pope. Born in Chicago, Prevost had a long ecclesiastical career before being elected head of the Catholic Church, marked by service in the Augustinian order, work in Peru and leading duties in the Vatican. Precisely because of that combination of American origin, Latin American experience and Vatican service, his election attracted global attention from the start, and sporting details from his life brought him even closer to the wider public.
His connection with the White Sox resonated especially after recordings and photographs appeared from the broadcast of the first game of the 2005 World Series. According to reports by AP and MLB.com, the future pope was among the spectators at that game, and his fan history quickly turned into one of the most recognizable sports anecdotes of his pontificate. The White Sox later further marked the connection with the pope, including a visual tribute near the section of the stadium where, according to MLB.com, he sat during the game. That story is both local and global: it begins in Chicago, but because of the papal office it gained international resonance and became a topic beyond the usual sports sections.
For White Sox fans, that connection has a special tone because the club carries a long and complex history, including great highs, long periods of waiting and a strong identity tied to the South Side of Chicago. Leo XIV does not appear in this story as an occasional observer, but as a person whose fandom was documented at the moment of the club's greatest success in recent history. When Pierzynski now presented the ball from that game in the Vatican, he symbolically closed the circle between the stands of 2005 and the papal audience of 2026. In a sporting sense, it is the return of an object from one great evening to a man who at that time was only one of thousands of fans in the stadium; in a broader cultural sense, it is a scene that shows how the personal biographies of public figures often contain details that make them more understandable and closer to the audience.
Why the 2005 game remained important
The 2005 World Series was a turning point for the Chicago White Sox. According to MLB's official postseason overview, the White Sox won the title with a 4-0 series victory against the Houston Astros. MLB.com states that the team entered the playoffs after a very strong season, that it eliminated the then reigning champions, the Boston Red Sox, in the American League Division Series, and then defeated the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim in the American League Championship Series. The Houston Astros, who reached the World Series as representatives of the National League, were then playing in the final series for the first time in the club's history. The clash between Chicago and Houston therefore had weight for both sides, but in the end it entered history as a dominant championship series by the White Sox.
The first game of the series was important because it set the tone for the rest of the duel. MLB.com states in its summary that Jermaine Dye opened the game with a home run, Juan Uribe added an important hit in the second inning, and Joe Crede hit a home run that restored Chicago's lead. Houston threatened and kept the result uncertain, but the White Sox survived the final stretch of the game with a key role from the pitchers in the bullpen. Bobby Jenks's final strikeout of Adam Everett, with Pierzynski as catcher, became the last act of the game, and that very ball has now been presented to Pope Leo XIV. For that reason, the gift has a precise place in sports chronology: it is tied to the first of four steps toward a title the club had waited 88 years to win.
In the following games, the White Sox continued their run. According to MLB.com, the second game brought Chicago a dramatic 7-6 victory, the third lasted 14 innings and ended with a 7-5 White Sox victory, while the fourth ended with the narrowest possible score of 1-0. Such a sequence created one of the cleanest championship series in the club's modern history: Chicago did not lose a single World Series game, and the 2005 season thereby remained a reference point for all later generations of fans. The ball that Pierzynski preserved and then presented to the pope therefore belongs to the wider mosaic of a season that continues to be regularly commemorated, retold and used as a foundation of the fan community's identity.
A Vatican meeting that connected sport and personal history
Pierzynski's meeting with the pope in the Vatican attracted attention precisely because it was not an ordinary protocol gift. Popes are often presented with objects carrying religious, cultural or state symbolism, while sports memorabilia usually have a more relaxed and personal character. In this case, however, the gift was deeply connected to the pope's own past. According to AP, Pierzynski posted photos of the moment of presentation on social media and emphasized the personal meaning of the encounter. It has not been officially confirmed whether additional details about the game or the pope's memories of the 2005 evening were shared during the meeting, but publicly available posts clearly show that the encounter had a strong symbolic dimension.
For Pierzynski, who during his playing career was known as a combative and often highly visible player, this moment acquired a different tone from ordinary sporting recollections. According to MLB.com, he was the catcher of the 2005 White Sox team, and it was precisely his position on the field in the final moments of the first game that further connected the ball with his personal role in the historic moment. Giving the ball to the pope is therefore also an act of handing over sporting memory to a person who watched that moment from the perspective of a fan. It is a rare situation in which the same object simultaneously belongs to a player, a club, a fan community and the biography of a global religious leader.
The story fits into a broader series of sports gifts that Leo XIV has received since being elected pope. AP states that he received a White Sox jersey with the number 14, connected to Paul Konerko, as well as a bat that belonged to Nellie Fox, a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame and one of the White Sox legends. The same source also mentions other sports gifts, including a personalized Chicago Bears jersey and a Chicago Bulls jersey. Such objects do not change the religious or institutional nature of the papal office, but they contribute to the public image of the pope as a person with a recognizable personal history, local roots and a fan identity that can be traced through decades.
The White Sox continue to mark their connection with the pope
The club has turned Pope Leo XIV's connection with the White Sox into part of its own fan activities. According to an MLB.com post from April 2026, the White Sox announced that on August 11, 2026, during the game against the Cincinnati Reds at Rate Field, they would distribute specially designed caps inspired by the papal mitre to fans, with the club logo in the center. The club initially tied the promotion to special tickets, but according to the same source it was decided that the caps would be available to all fans at that game, after great public interest. That move shows that the pope's fan connection with the club has become more than a one-time viral story.
MLB.com also states that the White Sox organization had earlier placed a visual tribute near section 140, connected with the place from which Robert Prevost watched the first game of the 2005 World Series. Such gestures have an important function in sport: they turn an individual event into a lasting part of stadium memory. Fans who come to games encounter not only results and statistics, but also stories that connect the club with people and moments beyond the field itself. In the case of Leo XIV, that connection is especially unusual because one fan biography flowed into the sphere of global religious and media attention.
For a club that in 2005 won the title after 88 years of waiting, the connection with the pope has additional emotional value. It does not replace sports history, but makes it more visible to new generations who may not have personally followed that World Series. The ball that Pierzynski presented in the Vatican is now the most concrete object in that story: physical proof of the final out of the game, part of a championship season and a memory that ended up in the hands of the man who watched it as a fan from the stands. That is exactly why the meeting in the Vatican is not only an anecdote about a pope who loves baseball, but also a reminder that sporting events sometimes, decades later, acquire new meaning through the lives of the people who witnessed them.
Sources:
- Associated Press – report on A.J. Pierzynski's gift to Pope Leo XIV, the circumstances of the Vatican meeting and earlier sports gifts connected with the pope (link)
- MLB.com – report on the presentation of the ball from the final out of the first game of the 2005 World Series and Pope Leo XIV's connection with the Chicago White Sox (link)
- Holy See – official biography of Pope Leo XIV, including the date of election, papal name and basic biographical information (link)
- MLB.com – official overview of the 2005 World Series and the key games of the Chicago White Sox series against the Houston Astros (link)
- MLB.com – overview of the 2005 postseason with series results and confirmation of the White Sox's 4-0 victory over the Astros (link)
- MLB.com – post about the planned distribution of caps inspired by Pope Leo XIV at the White Sox game against the Cincinnati Reds on August 11, 2026 (link)