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By Bobby Ross Jr. | Religion Unplugged
“Best day at work ever.”
That’s how my friend Bob Smietana responded when I asked if he enjoyed covering “Pope Night” at the Chicago White Sox game Tuesday — as the team gave away 40,000 miter-shaped hats in honor of its most famous fan, Pope Leo XIV.
In the world of the Godbeat, Smietana is no rookie. He has reported on religion for 27 years for news organizations ranging from The Tennessean to Christianity Today.
Now a national correspondent for Religion News Service based near Chicago, he texted me last week to ask if I had any advice for a soon-to-be first-timer in an MLB press box. (I might have mentioned once or twice or maybe 200 times here at Weekend Plug-in that I love delving into faith and baseball.)
“Don’t cheer in the press box?” I replied to Smietana, making sure to include a smiley face emoji. “Seriously, you’re a pro. Just follow the press guidelines, and you’ll be fine. Have a great time!”
“It’s a good thing it’s not at Fenway!” he answered.
Did I mention that Smietana is a lifelong Boston Red Sox fan? In fact, in a 2024 RNS opinion column titled “I am not going to hate you,” he allowed, “There are trivial things I love to hate, like the New York Yankees.”
But this is a column about the other Sox — the Windy City ones whose connection to the first U.S.-born pope thrust the franchise into the international spotlight.
This column appears in the online magazine Religion Unplugged.
Photo by Bob Smietana
Faith. Family. Fastballs. 