On Thursday afternoon -- running with a claim by an ABC News reporter -- the Chicago Cubs boasted that Pope Leo XIV was a fan of theirs, with their famous signage outside Wrigley Field telling the locals the good news: "Hey, Chicago. He's a Cubs fan!"

But Leo, John insisted, always rooted for the White Sox. The pope was born Robert Prevost in 1955 and raised in Dolton, Ill., just south of the Chicago city limits. Following on avid soccer fan Pope Francis, the athletic world appears to have received another sports-loving pope.

And yet, the biggest W the Cubs have flown this year has nothing to do with any of that. It came all the way from Vatican City on Thursday afternoon, when word broke that Chicago native Robert Francis Prevost had been elected by the College of Cardinals to be the first American pope in the history of the Catholic Church.