News
Pope Leo the White Sox Fan: Something to Celebrate for Chicago’s South Side
Stanley Brown was up late on Thursday, monitoring all the news about the new pope, Leo XIV, including revelations that he grew up as a Chicago White Sox baseball fan. As soon as Mr. Brown heard that, he knew something very important.
“If he’s a White Sox fan, then he can identify with suffering,” said Mr. Brown, 72, a village trustee in Dolton, Ill., the town where the pope grew up. “But it doesn’t matter how bad they are, we stay loyal as Sox fans. That’s not something you just give up.”
Chicago has long been divided between its two baseball teams, the White Sox on the South Side and the Cubs on the north. Both are known more for losing than winning over their century-plus histories. But the Northsiders usually attracted more attention as the cuddly, lovable Cubbies, with their boutique stadium, afternoon games, celebrity renditions of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” and the hand-operated scoreboard at Wrigley Field.
The White Sox, playing inside a less charming stadium in a grittier part of town, are far from chic. But there is an unmistakable pride held by their fans, especially now.
The Cubs may have won the World Series more recently, in 2016, and may be considered a more fashionable brand. But the White Sox have the pope.
“That tells you he’s a real person,” said Courtney White, an athletic coordinator for youth sports in Dolton. “I mean, he’s from Dolton and he’s a White Sox fan. You can’t get more real than that.”
Being a White Sox fan is not easy. It requires devotion, loyalty, faith and above all else, forgiveness. It almost sounds like an internship for a job at the Vatican.
Pope Leo was born Robert Francis Prevost and grew up in a modest single-family house at 212 141st Place in Dolton, a middle- and working-class town just across the line from Chicago’s southern boundary. As soon as he was named pope on Thursday and identified as a Chicagoan, one of the first things people here wanted to know was, Sox or Cubs?
At first, rumors circulated that he was, gasp, a Cubs fan. But his brother John Prevost explained on WGN in Chicago that, although their mother’s family was from the North Side and harbored allegiances to the Cubs, the pope favored the White Sox (their father was a Cardinals fans, appropriately enough for the father of a prelate).
By Friday evening, his White Sox bona fides were validated. While living in Rome in 2005, he managed to make it to Game 1 of the World Series in Chicago. He was even spotted in the stands during the national television broadcast. The White Sox won the game, 5-3, and went on to sweep the Houston Astros for their first World Series title since 1917.
Pope Leo was born in 1955, amid a run of relative success for the White Sox. Weeks after he turned 4, they made it to the World Series, losing to the Los Angeles Dodgers. They were decent over the next few years but weren’t able to make it back to the World Series again until 2005.
Robert Prevost was not particularly interested in playing sports, according to his friend, James Priestley, 69, a lawyer from Naperville, Ill., who attended both a seminary high school in Michigan and college at Villanova with the pope. Bob, as Mr. Priestley knew him, was more passionate about academics, philosophy and spiritual matters than who stole the most bases in 1961 (it was Luis Aparicio of the White Sox).
“I would say there is really no sports angle here,” Mr. Priestley said. “He was always such a sweet, caring, intellectual guy, exactly the kind of person you hope would become pope. But he didn’t talk much about sports, that I recall. If you asked him about Catholic doctrine or something like that, he could talk all day about that.”
When they attended St. Augustine Seminary High School near Holland, Mich., a boarding school for boys, all students were required to participate in sports. Mr. Priestley recalled the pope participating out of obligation rather than passion. He also recalled an annual party among their peer group to watch a Chicago Bears football game, and the pope attended at least one of those.
Mr. Priestley, on the other hand, is a devoted White Sox supporter, who just watched his team lose four straight games this week, in typically sloppy fashion. This is an organization that set a record last season for most losses — 121. The White Sox today are in a familiar spot, last place in the American League Central. The Cubs are in first place in National League Central.
“The tradition says that the Cubs fans are snooty and soft and the White Sox fans are tougher,” Mr. Priestley said. “I don’t really buy into all that. But I can tell you that there are some Cubs fans in the southland suburbs. I don’t think there are too many White Sox fans to the north.”
On Friday, the White Sox played their first home game since the pope’s election. Ann Allie, 46, a physician from Chicago, said she was worried when she first heard that the pope was a Cubs fan.
“I was relieved when I heard he likes the White Sox,” she said. “It’s really cool, and it makes sense.”
Art Ortiz, a web designer at the game with his family, is a rare example of a White Sox fan originally from the North Side. But he was taken to a game as a child in the 1980s, and fell in love. He hoped the new pope might help the fortunes of his club.
“It’s a blessing,” he said. “And we need it.”
About 20 minutes south of the stadium, Dolton has a rich baseball tradition, too. One street is named after Lou Boudreau, the Hall of Fame player for Cleveland, who grew up in nearby Harvey, Ill. The Dolton Boys was a Little League powerhouse for many years, until fewer and fewer kids participated. Mr. White, the athletic coordinator, played through high school and was coached by Mr. Brown, the village trustee. They said they were negotiating with the nonprofit The Players Alliance to help revitalize baseball in the town.
“Baseball used to be everything, until they rolled out that basketball,” Mr. Brown said as he looked over one of the municipal fields where he coached both his son and Mr. White. “Now, it’s hard to get kids to play.”
A few blocks away, in front of the pope’s childhood home, several people came to visit on Friday. Some, like Ralph Pizza, 65, a retired architect, grew up a few blocks away on 146th St., and said he and most of his friends were White Sox fans. But he did know some Cubs fans there, too.
John Crowley, a retired electrician, is 68 and from the North Side. He roots for the Cubs but dared to make the trip south. He is also Catholic, and wanted to see the house where the new pope grew up. He is thrilled that Pope Leo is from the Chicago area, but not as much that he is a White Sox fan. He promised not to hold it against him.
“It’s OK,” Mr. Crowley said. “They can use the help.”
Federal prosecutors have filed charges against a former Army serviceman they accused of distributing instructions on how to build explosives that were used by a man who conducted a deadly attack in New Orleans on New Year’s Day last year.
The former serviceman, Jordan A. Derrick, a 40-year-old from Missouri, was charged with one count of engaging in the business of manufacturing explosive materials without a license; one count of unlawful possession of an unregistered destructive device; and one count of distributing information relating to manufacturing explosives, according to a criminal complaint unsealed on Wednesday. The three charges together carry a maximum sentence of 40 years in federal prison.
Starting in September 2023, the authorities said, Mr. Derrick was using various social media sites to share videos of himself making explosive materials, including detonators. His videos provided step-by-step instructions, and he often engaged with viewers in comments, sometimes answering their questions about the chemistry behind the explosives.
The authorities said that Mr. Derrick’s videos were downloaded by Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar, 42, who was accused of ramming a pickup truck into a crowd on Bourbon Street in New Orleans on Jan. 1, 2025, in a terrorist attack that killed 14 people and injured dozens. Mr. Jabbar was killed in a shootout with the police. Before the attack, Mr. Jabbar had placed two explosives on Bourbon Street, the authorities said, but they did not detonate.
The authorities later recovered two laptops and a USB drive in a house that Mr. Jabbar had rented. The USB drive contained several videos created by Mr. Derrick that provided instructions on making explosives. The authorities said the explosives they recovered were consistent with the ones Mr. Derrick had posted about.
Mr. Derrick’s lawyers did not respond to requests for comment.
Mr. Derrick was a combat engineer in the Army, where he provided personnel and vehicle support, the authorities said. He also helped supervise safety personnel during demolitions and various operations. He was honorably discharged in February 2013.
The authorities did not say whether Mr. Derrick had any communication with Mr. Jabbar, or whether the men had known each other. In some of Mr. Derrick’s videos and comments, he indicated that he was aware that his videos could be misused.
“There are a plethora of uh, moral, you know, entanglements with topics, any topic of teaching explosives, right?” he asked in one video, according to the affidavit. “Of course, the wrong people could get it.”
The authorities also said that an explosion occurred at a private residence in Odessa, Mo., on May 4, and the occupant of the residence told investigators that he had manufactured explosives after watching online tutorials from Mr. Derrick.
Mr. Derrick’s YouTube account had more than 15,000 subscribers and 20 published videos, the affidavit said. He had also posted content on other platforms, including Odysee and Patreon. Some videos were accessible to the public for free, while others required a paid subscription to view.
“My responsibility to my countrymen is to make sure that I serve the function of the Second Amendment to strengthen it,” Mr. Derrick said in one of his videos, according to the affidavit. “This is how I serve my country for real.”
Outside of the income he received through content creation, Mr. Derrick did not have any known employment. He did receive a monthly disability check from Veterans Affairs, the affidavit stated.
A streamer known for hurling racist slurs in public settings under the nickname “Chud the Builder” was charged with attempted murder after a shooting outside a Tennessee courthouse on Wednesday, the authorities said.
The streamer, Dalton Eatherly, 28, was involved in a confrontation with an unidentified man that escalated to gunfire outside the Montgomery County Court in Clarksville, about 50 miles northwest of Nashville, the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement. Both men sustained gunshot wounds and were in stable condition, the office said.
In addition to attempted murder, Mr. Eatherly was charged with employing a firearm during dangerous felony, aggravated assault and reckless endangerment with a deadly weapon, the sheriff’s office said.
Mr. Eatherly, who is white, has accumulated an online audience by livestreaming confrontations in which he uses racist language toward Black people in public.
Law enforcement did not provide any details about the second man involved in Wednesday’s shooting. Mr. Eatherly posted an audio recording online of paramedics treating his wounds in which he claims he shot the man in self-defense.
A video posted by the website Clarksville Now shows Mr. Eatherly on a stretcher with a microphone attached to his lapel.
Mr. Eatherly is being held at the Montgomery County Jail, pending arraignment, the sheriff’s office said.
According to court records, Mr. Eatherly was scheduled to appear for a court hearing on Wednesday morning in an unrelated case brought by Midland Credit Management, a collections agency.
A lawyer listed in court records from a separate harassment case in which Mr. Eatherly was a defendant in November did not respond to a request for comment.
On Sunday, three days before the shooting in Clarksville, Mr. Eatherly was arrested in Nashville. According to a police affidavit, Mr. Eatherly live streamed his meal at a restaurant, Bob’s Steak and Chop House, on Saturday even though the restaurant had asked him ahead of time not to do so.
When he was confronted, Mr. Eatherly “became disruptive and started making racial statements, yelling, screaming and otherwise creating a scene,” according to the affidavit.
He then refused to pay for his $370 meal. Mr. Eatherly was charged with theft of services, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. He was released on $5,000 bond.
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